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In the first Beyond the Secret Garden column of the new year, Darren Chetty and Karen Sands-O’Connor are inspired by a new poetry anthology. In September 2025, Nosy Crow published This is Not a Small Voice, a full colour 128 page hardback anthology, subtitled Poems by Black Poets, and selected by Traci Todd with warm, […]
In this issue’s Beyond the Secret Garden column, Darren Chetty and Karen Sands-O’Connor turn to comics and graphic novels. From their beginnings in the late 19th century, British comic makers published content with racist undertones, and continued to do so throughout the twentieth century in some of the most popular comics. Racist humour was present […]
In the latest in their Beyond the Secret Garden series examining representations of Black and racially minoritized people in children’s literature, Darren Chetty and Karen Sands-O’Connor seek out universal access in science-fiction writing for children. Writing in 2004, Farah Mendlesohn argued that there was a ‘paucity of fiction for children which fits the definition of […]
I first encountered Darren Chetty’s work through The Good Immigrant. His chapter, You Can’t Do That! Stories have to be about white people!, took me straight back to primary school. I’d brought in a book to share with the class — the cover showed a girl in a hijab praying, backlit in golden light. Another […]
In the latest in our long-running Beyond the Secret Garden series, Darren Chetty and Karen Sands-O’Connor look at books for the very youngest. Although durable books made of cardboard or cloth have been around since the 1880s, according to researcher Allison Kaplan, board books and toddler books began to take off in the 1940s and […]
In the latest in our long-running Beyond the Secret Garden series, Darren Chetty and Karen Sands-O’Connor return to the subject of the representations of lone children of colour, and look at books published in the 21st century. The twenty-first century has seen two major developments regarding books featuring racially minoritised children living away from their […]
In the latest in our long-running Beyond the Secret Garden series, Darren Chetty and Karen Sands-O’Connor look at representations of lone children of colour. Part one – books published before the 21st century Children’s literature features many orphans – from Cinderella, Rapunzel and Mowgli to Dorothy Gale, Harry Potter and of course Mary Lennox. Many […]
In the latest in our long-running Beyond the Secret Garden series, Darren Chetty and Karen Sands-O’Connor turn their attention to amazing Asia. Rashmi Sirdeshpande’s and Jason Lyon’s landmark publication Amazing Asia (Wide Eyed Editions 2024) moves beyond traditional definitions of Asia as being either ‘East’ or ‘South’ to include western and northern regions of Asia, […]
For the latest in our long-running Beyond the Secret Garden series, Darren Chetty and Karen Sands-O’Connor look at the influence of Daniel Defoe’s classic, Robinson Crusoe. This summer saw the cinema release of Kensuke’s Kingdom, based on the book by Michael Morpurgo. The screenplay, written by Children’s Laureate Frank Cottrell-Boyce, dispensed with the book’s framing […]
For the latest in our long-running Beyond the Secret Garden series, Darren Chetty and Karen Sands-O’Connor look at the representation of Palestinians in children’s literature. Historical fiction about the crusades, such as G. A. Henty’s The Boy Knight: A Tale of the Crusades (1883), and those set in Palestine during the British Mandate (1918–1948) like […]
In the latest in our long-running Beyond the Secret Garden series, Darren Chetty and Karen Sands-O’Connor take a trip to Africa in children’s books. In 2005, Binyavanga Wainaiana produced a satirical manual on ‘How to Write About Africa’ for the magazine Granta. Many of the stereotypes of Africa and Africans that he describes came out […]
In the latest in our long-running Beyond the Secret Garden series, Darren Chetty and Karen Sands-O’Connor take a critical look at joy in children’s books. The phrase ‘childhood joy’ often goes with words like ‘pure’ and ‘unadulterated’. But joy as depicted in children’s literature is almost always adulterated—written by adults. This means that joy in […]
In the latest in our long-running Beyond the Secret Garden series, Darren Chetty and Karen Sands-O’Connor explore exhibitions of children’s books. In the late 1990s, the British Library ran an exhibition of children’s books (it was called Children’s Books at the British Library). The poster for the exhibition featured a picture from Janet and Allan […]
In the latest in their long-running Beyond the Secret Garden series, Darren Chetty and Karen Sands-O’Connor consider representations of Jewish people in children’s literature. Many children in Britain will read books featuring Jewish people in Religious Education lessons. However, Jewishness can also be thought of as an ethnicity, and historically has been seen as a […]
In the latest in our Beyond the Secret Garden series, Darren Chetty and Karen Sands-O’Connor examine the way the Gypsy Roma and Traveller communities are represented in children’s literature. Gypsy, Roma and Travellers are identified in Britain as minority ethnic groups in the Race Relations (Amendment) Act (2000). The Act places a general duty on […]
In the latest in their long-running Beyond the Secret Garden feature, examining the representation of black, Asian and minority ethnic voices in British children’s literature Darren Chetty and Karen Sands-O’Connor look at magic and who gets to wield it. The first English translation of 1001 Nights (variously titled as Arabian Nights, Arabian Nights’ Entertainment, and […]
For this issue of BfK’s long-running series Beyond the Secret Garden, Darren Chetty and Karen Sands-O’Connor offer a different kind of column, about the importance of preserving and celebrating children’s books in a national institution. Listen to this story about an exhibition, the first exhibition entirely focused on the history of children’s literature by and […]
In the latest in the Beyond the Secret Garden series, Darren Chetty and Karen Sands-O’Connor examine depictions of Black people’s hair in children’s books. It is not uncommon for children’s books, in Britain and beyond, to feature characters who are identified by their hair or stories their hair plays a significant role in events. Descriptions […]
Launched in 1980, we’ve reviewed hundreds of new children’s books each year and published articles on every aspect of writing for children.
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