The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold.

Young teenage girl Susie Salmon is murdered and her body cut in bits and only her elbow found. The readership know who did it because the girl's spirit/ghost remains closely and tells us so. We know that the same man has killed many other girls and occasionally women. Susie speaks to some of them in heaven. The police make no progress even though the girls father points the finger at the right chap. The girl's sister is more proactive and she becomes a new target. The police investigator is having sex with Susie's mother and allows the murderer to escape. He kills again, and is never caught - he dies in a freak accident trying it with another girl. Susie has appeared to her friend Ruth (and to her brother) and briefly changes places with Ruth so she can have sex with her former boyfriend Ray (now Ruth's boyfriend). They all live happily ever after (Ruth and Ray anyway, Susie finds a more distant heaven). Good grief. What ambition.

Can stories encourage helpful sedition?

Bigger, Stephen and Webb, Jean (2010) Developing Environmental Agency and Engagement Through Young People’s Fiction. Environmental Education Research . ISSN 1469-5871 (electronic) 1350-4622 (paper) http://eprints.worc.ac.uk/788

Bigger, Stephen (2010) Literature For Learning: Can Stories Enhance Children’s Education? Almas , Vol. 11 . ISSN 1818-9296 http://eprints.worc.ac.uk/793

The first explores how 20th century children's stories encourage social (and environmental) action, active participation in changing and protecting the world rather than passive acceptance of adult policies. They are therefore (in a positive way) seditious, encouraging children thinking for themselves and taking action. We argue that this can be a role model for children growing up, for whom real life is anything but this.

The second paper is for a Pakistani journal, promoting informal education through story.

Early women writers for children.

May I recommend the book by Mary Segag-Montefiore, Women Writers of Children's Classics, 2008, published by Northcote Press, in Tavistock, Devon, 138 pages. It is a study of Juliana Ewing, Louisa Molesworth, Frances Hodgson Burnett and Edith Nesbit.

Malcolm Saville. 1901-1982.

A collection of the following papers by Stephen Bigger can be found on http://eprints.worc.ac.uk/800. Some letter can be found on http://eprints.worc.ac.uk/799
These are revisions of orginals published by the Malcolm Saville Society. Copyright: Stephen Bigger, 2010.

Part 1. The Emerging Author
1. D J Desmond: the Anonymous Author. 2005
Malcolm Saville wrote occasionally under this name, and these works are discussed.
2. Malcolm Saville at My Garden Magazine. 2005
3. Apprenticeship: Malcolm Saville and David Severn 2003 The literary relationship between two beginning writers.
4. The Influence of J M Barrie on Malcolm Saville 2004 Malcolm Saville was fond of Dear Brutus by J M Barrie and this influenced his characterisation. 2004.
5. Did Malcolm Saville know W.E. Johns, author of Biggles? 2009.

Part 2. Values
6. Families in Difficulties
7. Romany Secrets: The depiction of Romanies in the writings of Malcolm Saville. 2002
8. Children Coping - Welcome the Jillies. 1998
9. Yellow Peril? The Depiction of the Chinese in the Fiction of Malcolm Saville 2002
Malcolm Saville's depiction of Chinese residents of Docklands.
10. Good People Working Together: The Lesson of Sea Witch Comes Home

Part 3. Locations
11. Why Choose Blakeney? Birds, Artists and Holidays in Digs. 2002 Post-war holidays and Malcolm Saville’s Jillies series.
12. Coping in dangerous waters: defining gender roles in the Ely Floods 2003 Relationships in The Luck of Sallowby (1952), Malcolm Saville’s fifth Jillies book, set in Ely floods.
13. Romanticised Landscape: Malcolm Saville’s Cornwall Real and fictional topography in Malcolm Saville’s Flying Fish Adventure 2003
14. Sea Watch at Southwold. 2004
Comparison of historical detail of the 1953 North Sea ‘great storm’ with Malcolm Saville’s Sea Witch Comes Home. Easter 2004.
15. Dartmoor, Flying Saucers and Military Secrecy 2005.
Links between flying saucers in two Saville stories, and other science fiction literature.
16. Muker, North Yorkshire: The Mysteries of Muker: Or Which Steps, Which Barn and Which Crackpot?

Part 4. Life in the 1940s
17. Spirit of the Place: Writing about England.
18. Small Creatures, and the Truth in a Tale Series. Nature writing.
19. Railways of Adventure. The place of railways in Malcolm Saville’s fiction. 2004 and 2007.
20. Harvest Holiday: A Happy Return to Townsend Farm. 2008
21. A Death in Normandy. The background to Mary and Michael’s father. 2009.

Jake

These stories were originally written for primary age school children in Swindon featuring a sheepdog inappropriately called Wolf. The first characters to emerge were Josh, a Londoner; Jazwinder, a pushy girl; Sarah and Roger. A controntation between Josh and Jake, an out of control boy with a chip on his shoulder and violent tendencies, led to a series of stories in which Jake sorts himself out. He was modelled on a real child, a girl, who did exactly that when she was 9-10 years old although all other details are entirely fictitious.
From book 1,Wolf in Old Town.
Story 1. Jake the bully.
Story 2. Fishing with Grandpa.
Story 3. Jake's Difficult Day.
Story 4. Jake's Fate
Go to http://sites.google.com/site/jakeinschool1/

Garth Nix

I wrote two linked posts on Garth Nix at:
http://learnlivethrive.blogspot.com/2008/09/garth-nix-ragwitch-1990.html
http://learnlivethrive.blogspot.com/2008/09/ragwitch-2-moral-development.html
He is discussed also in a blog I am currently writing.

Michelle Magorian, Just Henry.

Michelle Magorian (born 1947) became famous for the wartime evacuee story Goodnight Mister Tom, her first published book. Here in Just Henry (2008) she sets her story around 1950. It is just at the ending of ration coupons. Austerity appears everywhere - bomb sites still flattened, the family relics of war apparent, with missing fathers, dead fathers, desperate mothers. This is an 'all live happily ever after' story but the detail makes it interesting. I am not retelling the story here, it is for you to read; rather I pick out some issues to contemplate. There is an anti-discrimination theme, with treatment of an illegitimate boy and the son of an alleged deserter dominating the first third of this 700 page book. Henry has his mind poisoned by his Gran (mother of Henry's dead war hero father) who declared herself a dependent invalid at the age of 53, not only adding to Henry's mother's burden, but physically hitting her and Mollie her infant. It is painfully gradually that Henry sees her for what she really is. The heroes of the tale are the new teacher Mr Finch, and the 60 year old writer Mrs Beaumont, who teach the children actively to resist prejudice and develop a can-do attitude to life and relationships. Both adults are rebels, non-compliant, creative, putting good relationships ahead of all else. A historical job of the story lies in the detail on 1950s films and cinema, presented as a source of entertainment visited several times each week.

The children are from the first ROSLA cohort, when school leaving age was raised from 14 to 15. They are in a secondary modern school, although Henry deliberately failed the 11 plus to please his Gran. Grace is dyslexic and has been expelled from 13 schools for idleness and insubordination, Pip is illegitimate, Jefferies whose father is accused of desertion. These become an unlikely group of friends. Secondary modern kids are presented as talented artistically and vocationally. Things work for these children because of cooperation - their careers were what they wished, but only good will made it possible. It is not a meritocracy - jobs went to people who had friends and relations in the business - railway, films, drama and singing, music. The cooperation of this special group of children and adults beat off the horrendous conservatism of society generally, represented by Gran who is actively malicious, the school headteacher who is prejudiced, Grace's absentee parents who think success comes through punishment. The only part of the plot I shall give away is bigoted Gran's discomfort to find her own son to be a deserter and her favorite grandson to be illegitimate.

Similar but different issues about negative views of people leading to prejudice are apparent in each generation. We have to have eyes open for the next threat - whether asylum seekers, Muslims, economic migrants from Eastern Europe, travellers or whatever. Empowering all should be a key to policy, strategy and pedagogy.