The Haunted Wood A History of Childhood Reading

Written with affection as well as erudition, this excellent survey brings old favourites back to life while also focusing on some of the best mostly British twentieth century children’s writers. Less respectable non-bookish literature that children have also always enjoyed from Penny Dreadfuls to comics gets comparatively short-shrift, but more such detail would make a big book even heavier. Setting out to cover mostly mainstream writing over the years could have led to a profusion of familiar plot summaries and little else, but somehow Leith always finds new things to say and interesting ways of saying them. Did you know that the first ever mention of ‘base-ball ‘can be found in the ground-breaking A Little Pretty Pocket-Book published in 1744? Or that Alan Garner for two years used to go for runs with Alan Turing?

Other critics of children’s literature have often found much to criticise, such as the cheery philistinism in Tom Brown’s Schooldays, the crude racism in Captain W.E. Johns’ Biggles stories and the snobbery sometimes breaking out in Enid Blyton’s adventure stories. Describing one character as looking like ‘a dustman’s daughter’ was just one of a number of her unthinkingly cruel put-downs. Leith knows about such faults, but for him the good far outweighs the bad. He is also perceptive on the way that boarding school stories from early on enabled British writers plenty of scope to celebrate childhood naughtiness. Safely away from home, child characters often at war with their teachers could therefore never risk breaking the Fourth Commandment taken so seriously in family children’s books for years on the necessity for honouring both father and mother, come what may.

There are a few errors. The great historian of childhood Phillipe Aries is French, not Spanish, and to describe C.S.Lewis as a ‘scruffy, beery, tweedy old geezer’ is an odd way to characterise someone who was also a brilliant scholar, although Leith is more generous about his children’s books. But this occasional unpredictability in style and comment also helps makes this very long book continually readable. Particular titles, some in danger of getting lost such as Nicholas Fisk’s Grinny, are picked out for detailed praise. There are omissions, with leading writers from the recent past like Nina Bawden and Leon Garfield not mentioned at all. Brilliant authors still writing, such as Geraldine Mccaughrean and Hilary McKay, also escape attention, but Malorie Blackman, Jacqueline Wilson, Philip Pullman and Julia Donaldson among others all get deservedly royal treatment.

With more libraries closing or else running down their stock and publishing houses failing to preserve their back-lists, today is not a good time for children’s classics, ancient or even comparatively modern. The current shift from page to screen is further challenging the habit of reading for pleasure once so taken for granted in book-loving children. This study is an eloquent reminder of the value of always maintaining easy access to what we still have.