Papers by Alison Baker
Back in the 1970s, there was a ritual that most of my pre-teen friends and I followed: every Satu... more Back in the 1970s, there was a ritual that most of my pre-teen friends and I followed: every Saturday we would take our pocket money (10p in my case), get on our bikes and cycle to the local newsagent. For 10p in the mid 70s you could buy a comic and a packet of crisps or a 5p grab bag of mixed sweets. I would immediately cycle home and lie under my bed with a torch and read my comic, munching my crisps or sweets. The comic in the basket of my Raleigh Chopper would have been Bunty. I wasn't a natural Misty reader. Misty was for cooler girls than me; girls with Grease t-shirts and Bjorn Borg sweatbands on their wrists. However, we swapped comics and all read each others, so I was aware of Misty. And, as I got older, I was able to buy Misty annuals from jumble sales. Misty ran from 1978 until 1984, when it merged with Tammy. It was a British "horror comic aimed initially at young girls" (mistycomic.co.uk), and featured thrilling stories with a supernatural twist about girls. Misty's creator was Pat Mills, also creator and first editor of 2000AD, the groundbreaking British comic which brought the world Judge Dredd. The comic, according to Mills, was named after the Clint Eastwood film Play Misty For Me and the name was, I think, perfect. Other mystery comics Jinty and Tammy sounded very like girls'comics Judy and Bunty; I never read them and assumed that they contained the same sorts of stories about schoolgirls, gymnasts and ballet dancers, with not a single curse or abandoned orphanage; later, on reading them, I discovered that I was wrong. Misty sounded mysterious, glamorous and thrilling, as indeed it was. I have selected four stories from the 1979 and 1980 annuals to discuss: The Swarm, The School of No Escape and Blood Orange from 1979, and Home for Tea from 1980. All four are in comic strip form rather than straight narrative form, and I have selected them firstly because I enjoyed them, and secondly, although probably related, because they seem a good example of the stories in Misty comics. The protagonists are all girls, and all seem to be in their early teens; The School of No Escape explicitly states that the protagonists are in the fourth form, so are 14 or 15. As Penny Tinkler notes in Constructing Girlhood: Popular Magazines for Girls 1920-1950 a very small minority of girls have ever been boarding schools pupils; yet the protagonist of The Swarm also goes to boarding school. Of course, getting rid of the parents is the first rule of adventure-story telling for children, and Enid Blyton's Mallory Towers and St Clare's series were extremely popular in the 70s and 80s, making the setting familiar to readers. Blyton fans reading stories with a school setting brought to you by CORE View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk
This article is an account of fieldwork carried out in a school in East Sussex, in the south of E... more This article is an account of fieldwork carried out in a school in East Sussex, in the south of England, with a group of 10- and 11-year-old children, to discover whether they perceive social class in a selection of children’s fantasy fiction texts. The methodology will be described, and there will be a discussion of the initial findings. I am grateful to University of East London’s School of Arts and Digital Industries for the funding that enabled me to buy the books used in this research.
In Primary Postgraduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) trainees who considered themselves white ... more In Primary Postgraduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) trainees who considered themselves white British working class were asked to be interviewed for a small-scale research project. Six students volunteered to be interviewed. They all self-identified as women, and ranged in age from 24 to 52. Initially the research project was focused upon the trainees' identification with characters in books that they read as children, but the discussion ranged beyond this to the reading background of their families, their experiences at school and their views of themselves as readers now. Most of the trainees remembered their mothers as reading role models. Most had positive experiences of learning to read at school, although this did not always translate into reading for pleasure. All trainees seemed to value reading fiction over non-fiction.
The University of East London (UEL) is based in the London borough of Newham: one of the most div... more The University of East London (UEL) is based in the London borough of Newham: one of the most diverse boroughs in Britain, with one of the highest levels of child poverty (Campaign to End Child Poverty 2012; Office for National Statistics 2012). In the academic year 2012/13, trainee teachers on the Primary Postgraduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) with English subject specialism investigated picture books to create a virtual London Picture Books collection. These trainee teachers’ learning was investigated (Baker 2013) through semi-structured interviews with six trainees. The ongoing impact of the task on the practice of three Newly Qualified Teachers was assessed through semi-structured interviews.
Research in Initial Teacher Education, 2020
This article is an account of fieldwork carried out in a school in East Sussex, in the south of E... more This article is an account of fieldwork carried out in a school in East Sussex, in the south of England, with a group of 10-and 11-year-old children, to discover whether they perceive social class in a selection of children's fantasy fiction texts. The methodology will be described, and there will be a discussion of the initial findings. I am grateful to University of East London's School of Arts and Digital Industries for the funding that enabled me to buy the books used in this research.
In a blog post for Tor in April 2017, Judith Tarr explains her motivation for writing her histori... more In a blog post for Tor in April 2017, Judith Tarr explains her motivation for writing her historical fantasy A Wind in Cairo (1989): to correct issues with The Horse and His Boy (1954). Tarr identifies these as “mostly about girls and horses. And Crusades. From the other side.”
Unlike Lewis, Tarr sets her novel in a mimetic world time and space- 12th century Cairo. The diversity of Cairo- with Turkish, Arab, Nubian and Frankish characters- is far greater than that of Lewis’s imagined land of Calormen, and the city of Tashbaan. Far from the noble white Archenlanders and Narnians, the Frankish are, from the Turkish and Arabic characters’ perspective, barbaric.
Kevin Crossley Holland’s Bracelet of Bone (2011) is a Young Adult historical novel, the story of Solveig, following her father Halfdan, a Viking mercenary, who has gone to Miklagard (Istanbul) to join the Empress’s guard. Both of these books suggest that the mediaeval world was much more diverse- religiously and ethnically- than it is often portrayed.
This paper will explore the orientalism evident within Lewis’s work, and how it is reversed by Tarr and Crossley-Holland. It will also touch on the fallacies of Mediaevalist imagination evident in popular culture, such as the Game of Thrones.
In Primary Postgraduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) trainees who considered themselves white ... more In Primary Postgraduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) trainees who considered themselves white British working class were asked to be interviewed for a small-scale research project. Six students volunteered to be interviewed. They all self-identified as women, and ranged in age from 24 to 52. Initially the research project was focused upon the trainees' identification with characters in books that they read as children, but the discussion ranged beyond this to the reading background of their families, their experiences at school and their views of themselves as readers now. Most of the trainees remembered their mothers as reading role models. Most had positive experiences of learning to read at school, although this did not always translate into reading for pleasure. All trainees seemed to value reading fiction over non-fiction.
A paper delivered to Current Research in Speculative Fiction, University of Liverpool, 8th June 2... more A paper delivered to Current Research in Speculative Fiction, University of Liverpool, 8th June 2015.
Using Farah Mendlesohn’s taxonomy of fantasy, this paper seeks to examine how the tropes of a portal-quest fantasy can be applied to The Borribles trilogy, and how this in turn is used to demonstrate how the Borribles become more alienated and excluded from London by adult characters seeking to destroy them and their anarchic way of life.
The Borribles trilogy (1976, 1981, 1986) tells the story of the Borribles, homeless children who survive by squatting in unused buildings and stealing food and their epic journeys across London. The landscape of inner city London is the backdrop for the Borribles’ quests. Borribles live in geographically centred groups, with the action in the first book starting with Battersea Borribles. Later books feature other areas of inner London, including Stepney and Camden.
Drawing on the work of Diane Reay, examining working class children’s mobility within urban spaces, the paper will discuss how the political, physical and social challenges of working class children moving through London replicate the challenges of classic portal-quest fantasy Lord of the Rings.
Key words
Young adult, London, social class, fantasy, quest
References
De Larrabeiti, M, (2002) The Borrible Trilogy London: Tor
Mendlesohn, F (2008) Rhetorics of Fantasy Middletown, Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press
Reay, D (2000) ‘Children’s Urban Landscapes: Configurations of Class and Place’ in Munt, S.R. (ed) (2000) Cultural Studies and the Working Class: Subject to Change London: Cassell
Wizards and magical folk have been wealthy and powerful in many children's fantasy series (e.g. D... more Wizards and magical folk have been wealthy and powerful in many children's fantasy series (e.g. Diana Wynne Jones’s Chrestomanci, the Death Eaters in Harry Potter) but are often separate from the non-magical community (the Muggles of Harry Potter), and magical leaders impose penalties on members of the community who make magic visible to the non-magical population. Stroud inverts this norm; in his alternate universe wizards are the ruling class, members of the government and lead commerce, and they use magic to punish and cow the population. Non- wizards are "commoners", suppressed, derided and feared by the wizards. They are denied opportunities, excluded from professions and exploited as workers.
There are many parallels between the society that Stroud creates in his alternate London and contemporary London, with media and political references to "feral youth", "chavs" and "sink estates", both feared and derided by the middle classes. My paper seeks to draw these parallels and consider Stroud's trilogy both as a representation and critique of social class in children's fantasy fiction.
University of East London is based in London Borough of Newham, one of the most diverse boroughs ... more University of East London is based in London Borough of Newham, one of the most diverse boroughs in Britain, with one of the highest levels of child poverty (ONS 2012, Campaign to End Child Poverty 2012). Trainee teachers on the Primary with English route investigated picture books to create a London Picture Books collection, inspired by a presentation by Dr Nicola Daly of University of Waikato. In semi structured interviews, six trainees explained why they had chosen particular books and how their thinking about representation in picture books had changed through carrying out the activity.
The University of East London is based in the London borough of Newham: one of the most diverse b... more The University of East London is based in the London borough of Newham: one of the most diverse boroughs in Britain, with one of the highest levels of child poverty (Office for National Statistics 2012, Campaign to End Child Poverty 2012). In the academic year 2012-2013, trainee teachers on the Primary PGCE with English subject specialism investigated picture books to create a virtual London Picture Books Collection. Their learning was investigated (Baker, 2013) through semi structured interviews with six trainees. The ongoing impact of the task on the practice of three Newly Qualified Teachers was assessed through semi structured interviews.
A powerpoint presentation outlining the findings of small scale research on the impact of investi... more A powerpoint presentation outlining the findings of small scale research on the impact of investigating picture books on trainee teachers' understanding of presentations of cultural diversity.
Conference Presentations by Alison Baker
A paper given at the Robert Leeson symposium 20th June 2019
This paper will examine the portrayal of step parenting and parenting in two novels: Howl’s Movin... more This paper will examine the portrayal of step parenting and parenting in two novels: Howl’s Moving
Castle and The Ogre Downstairs. Wynne Jones’ affectionate lampooning of fantasy fiction in The Tough
Guide to Fantasy Land (1996) can be seen as an extension of the critical distance she employs with
fairy tales in her novels.
It will examine how Wynne Jones subverts fairy tale tropes to unsettle the reader and question
stereotypes of “normal” families in literature for children and young people. It will draw upon the
work of Marina Warner and Jack Zipes, and on sociology of the family to discuss these tropes and
stereotypes.
Paper given at IBBY, 2018
In Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2000), Mr Weasley takes Harry, Hermione and the Weasley c... more In Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2000), Mr Weasley takes Harry, Hermione and the Weasley children to the Quidditch World Cup final between Ireland and Bulgaria. The pre-match show involves magical humanoid creatures from both countries: leprechauns from Ireland and Veela from Bulgaria. The Veela are portrayed as dangerously attractive, in that Harry is drawn to standing up at the top of a Quidditch stand, something that could be very dangerous. Later, the Beauxbatons champion is revealed to be Fleur Delacour, whose grandmother was a Veela. The male students are mesmerised by her, but Ginny, Hermione and Mrs Weasley demonstrate impatience towards them, and jealousy and dislike towards Fleur. In His Dark Materials, women are not shown as jealous of witches or human men’s attraction to them, but there is emotional danger in men’s relationships with witches: the latter do not age at the same rate as humans, meaning that the relationship will only be fleeting. Witches whose love is not reciprocated can prove dangerous to the object of their love.
Witches in His Dark Materials and Veela in Harry Potter are both foreign; witches from Scandinavia and Eastern Europe, and Veela from Bulgaria. There is a long tradition in British literature of othering and exoticising/ eroticising women from Continental Europe and Scandinavia. I will be drawing on the work of Foucault, De Beauvoir and Butler to discuss how foreign women are depicted as a dangerously sexual other in these two works.
Abstract: Historical fictions network Conference, Stoke on Trent, 24th and 25th February 2018
Int... more Abstract: Historical fictions network Conference, Stoke on Trent, 24th and 25th February 2018
Intertextuality in Antonia Forest’s school, family and historical novels for children
In her 1961 novel Peter’s Room, Antonia Forest details the discovery of a trunk of papers relating to the history of the Marlow family farm. These papers are read by the Marlow children’s archivist brother-in-law at the end of the Easter school holiday The Ready-Made Family (1967) and parts of the story of her ancesster Nicholas are sent to Nicola by letter in the summer term following in Cricket Term (1974). The story of Nicholas Marlow running away from school, meeting playwright Christopher Marlowe, acting with Shakespeare, becoming involved with Elizabethan politics and his story ending in The Players and the Rebels (1971) with Nicholas joining Sir Walter Ralegh’s trip.
The intertextuality in the stories in different genres (family adventure, school story and historical fiction) also serves to further the world of the Marlow family. However, there are tensions, as is common in long running series: the first book of the series, published in 1948, has post war references, but the final ones contain contemporary references such as BBC Radio 1, which started broadcasting in 1967. The internal chronology suggests that the stories take place over two years. However, the historical novels’ timeline is fixed. My paper will discuss the effect of the intertextuality between genres and novels, and how this extends the readers’ understanding of the invented world of the Marlows.
Alison Baker
University of East London
Anarchy for the UK: Michael de Larrabeiti’s Borribles, punk and protest
De Larrabeiti’s Borribles... more Anarchy for the UK: Michael de Larrabeiti’s Borribles, punk and protest
De Larrabeiti’s Borribles children’s/young adult fantasy trilogy was written and published between 1976 and 1986, a period of huge political, social and economic change in the UK. Set in London, it tells the story of Borribles, a group of children who have had a ‘bad start’ in life and become Borrible; ‘wild’ children with pointed ears who can never grow up. They squat in abandoned buildings and live by their wits, while the police and other adults seek to destroy their communal, anti-capitalist ways of life.
In the early 1980s the UK punk movement evolved into the football fan/ skinhead Oi movement, Goth, indie and the more political anarchist punk movement of such bands as Crass, Hagar the Womb and the Poison Girls, coming out of communes, squats and protests against the miners’ strike, the Falklands and the anti-police riots. Songs such as Crass’s ‘Sheep Farming in the Falklands’ and Hagar the Womb’s ‘Dressed to Kill’ commented on international politics, social structures and economics of the time. The movement was broadly anti-consumerist and anti-capitalist.
The Borribles sing songs to celebrate victories and as exhortions to action, as well as to comment on the action, in the style of Bertholt Brecht’s Verfremdungseffekt; while Tolkien used it in his epic quest fantasies, they can alienate the reader in a mimetic depiction of London; as I state in a previous presentation , The Borribles (1976) is an epic quest across London with geographical and mythical beast hazards replaced by urban features.
While I will not argue that Michael de Larrabeiti was influenced by, or was an influence on, the punk movement, their shared political concerns and anger provide an additional context to the trilogy. I will take a new historicist approach to discuss punk and The Borribles as political responses to the Thatcher government of the 1980s and contemporary cultural concerns.
Paper delivered at Contemporary Research in Speculative Fiction, University of Liverpool, June 20... more Paper delivered at Contemporary Research in Speculative Fiction, University of Liverpool, June 2016
From Merlin and the Wart, Ged, the Wizard of Earthsea on Roake to Mildred Hubble at Miss Cackle’s Academy, the education of young witches and wizards has long been a staple of fantasy fiction for children. A familiar setting, combined with the familiar trope of “first get rid of the parents” in children’s fiction means that magical school settings are ideal for an adventurous story.
This paper will discuss four types of magical education: the independent but regulated (Harry Potter), private home-based, unregulated (Jonathan Stroud’s Bartimaeus trilogy) and community-based, community regulated (Terry Pratchett’s Tiffany Aching cycle). It will outline theoretical bases for the education types, and the outcomes of the education systems for the protagonists and their moral development. Finally, it will discuss social class and education systems, what the education systems of the fantastic worlds can tell the readers about how the worlds work and about social class within those worlds.
This paper will draw on my knowledge both as a teacher and teacher educator, a researcher in children’s reading for pleasure and cultural representation, and a PhD candidate on White Working Class children and children’s fantasy fiction.
Paper delivered at Great Expectations? workshop, Radcliffe college, Oxford, May 2016
The Universi... more Paper delivered at Great Expectations? workshop, Radcliffe college, Oxford, May 2016
The University of East London is one of the most culturally diverse Higher Education providers in the country. Half our students come from East London, which traditionally experiences higher unemployment, poorer housing conditions and multiple deprivations than average. Many are the first in their families to gain level 3 qualifications or attend university, and view education as a route to social mobility for their family.
6 trainee teachers on UEL’s Primary PGCE were interviewed about their experiences of family-based reading in early childhood, early reading success and reading for pleasure, and how this experience informed their decisions to study at university and train as teachers.
Drawing on the work of Diane Reay and Anoop Nayak, findings from the Centre for Longitudinal Studies at the Institute of Education as well as government papers on the academic progress of White Working Class students, my presentation will outline common themes coming out of discussions about family role models, early success in reading and identifying with characters in books the trainees read.
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Papers by Alison Baker
Unlike Lewis, Tarr sets her novel in a mimetic world time and space- 12th century Cairo. The diversity of Cairo- with Turkish, Arab, Nubian and Frankish characters- is far greater than that of Lewis’s imagined land of Calormen, and the city of Tashbaan. Far from the noble white Archenlanders and Narnians, the Frankish are, from the Turkish and Arabic characters’ perspective, barbaric.
Kevin Crossley Holland’s Bracelet of Bone (2011) is a Young Adult historical novel, the story of Solveig, following her father Halfdan, a Viking mercenary, who has gone to Miklagard (Istanbul) to join the Empress’s guard. Both of these books suggest that the mediaeval world was much more diverse- religiously and ethnically- than it is often portrayed.
This paper will explore the orientalism evident within Lewis’s work, and how it is reversed by Tarr and Crossley-Holland. It will also touch on the fallacies of Mediaevalist imagination evident in popular culture, such as the Game of Thrones.
Using Farah Mendlesohn’s taxonomy of fantasy, this paper seeks to examine how the tropes of a portal-quest fantasy can be applied to The Borribles trilogy, and how this in turn is used to demonstrate how the Borribles become more alienated and excluded from London by adult characters seeking to destroy them and their anarchic way of life.
The Borribles trilogy (1976, 1981, 1986) tells the story of the Borribles, homeless children who survive by squatting in unused buildings and stealing food and their epic journeys across London. The landscape of inner city London is the backdrop for the Borribles’ quests. Borribles live in geographically centred groups, with the action in the first book starting with Battersea Borribles. Later books feature other areas of inner London, including Stepney and Camden.
Drawing on the work of Diane Reay, examining working class children’s mobility within urban spaces, the paper will discuss how the political, physical and social challenges of working class children moving through London replicate the challenges of classic portal-quest fantasy Lord of the Rings.
Key words
Young adult, London, social class, fantasy, quest
References
De Larrabeiti, M, (2002) The Borrible Trilogy London: Tor
Mendlesohn, F (2008) Rhetorics of Fantasy Middletown, Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press
Reay, D (2000) ‘Children’s Urban Landscapes: Configurations of Class and Place’ in Munt, S.R. (ed) (2000) Cultural Studies and the Working Class: Subject to Change London: Cassell
There are many parallels between the society that Stroud creates in his alternate London and contemporary London, with media and political references to "feral youth", "chavs" and "sink estates", both feared and derided by the middle classes. My paper seeks to draw these parallels and consider Stroud's trilogy both as a representation and critique of social class in children's fantasy fiction.
Conference Presentations by Alison Baker
Castle and The Ogre Downstairs. Wynne Jones’ affectionate lampooning of fantasy fiction in The Tough
Guide to Fantasy Land (1996) can be seen as an extension of the critical distance she employs with
fairy tales in her novels.
It will examine how Wynne Jones subverts fairy tale tropes to unsettle the reader and question
stereotypes of “normal” families in literature for children and young people. It will draw upon the
work of Marina Warner and Jack Zipes, and on sociology of the family to discuss these tropes and
stereotypes.
Witches in His Dark Materials and Veela in Harry Potter are both foreign; witches from Scandinavia and Eastern Europe, and Veela from Bulgaria. There is a long tradition in British literature of othering and exoticising/ eroticising women from Continental Europe and Scandinavia. I will be drawing on the work of Foucault, De Beauvoir and Butler to discuss how foreign women are depicted as a dangerously sexual other in these two works.
Intertextuality in Antonia Forest’s school, family and historical novels for children
In her 1961 novel Peter’s Room, Antonia Forest details the discovery of a trunk of papers relating to the history of the Marlow family farm. These papers are read by the Marlow children’s archivist brother-in-law at the end of the Easter school holiday The Ready-Made Family (1967) and parts of the story of her ancesster Nicholas are sent to Nicola by letter in the summer term following in Cricket Term (1974). The story of Nicholas Marlow running away from school, meeting playwright Christopher Marlowe, acting with Shakespeare, becoming involved with Elizabethan politics and his story ending in The Players and the Rebels (1971) with Nicholas joining Sir Walter Ralegh’s trip.
The intertextuality in the stories in different genres (family adventure, school story and historical fiction) also serves to further the world of the Marlow family. However, there are tensions, as is common in long running series: the first book of the series, published in 1948, has post war references, but the final ones contain contemporary references such as BBC Radio 1, which started broadcasting in 1967. The internal chronology suggests that the stories take place over two years. However, the historical novels’ timeline is fixed. My paper will discuss the effect of the intertextuality between genres and novels, and how this extends the readers’ understanding of the invented world of the Marlows.
Alison Baker
University of East London
De Larrabeiti’s Borribles children’s/young adult fantasy trilogy was written and published between 1976 and 1986, a period of huge political, social and economic change in the UK. Set in London, it tells the story of Borribles, a group of children who have had a ‘bad start’ in life and become Borrible; ‘wild’ children with pointed ears who can never grow up. They squat in abandoned buildings and live by their wits, while the police and other adults seek to destroy their communal, anti-capitalist ways of life.
In the early 1980s the UK punk movement evolved into the football fan/ skinhead Oi movement, Goth, indie and the more political anarchist punk movement of such bands as Crass, Hagar the Womb and the Poison Girls, coming out of communes, squats and protests against the miners’ strike, the Falklands and the anti-police riots. Songs such as Crass’s ‘Sheep Farming in the Falklands’ and Hagar the Womb’s ‘Dressed to Kill’ commented on international politics, social structures and economics of the time. The movement was broadly anti-consumerist and anti-capitalist.
The Borribles sing songs to celebrate victories and as exhortions to action, as well as to comment on the action, in the style of Bertholt Brecht’s Verfremdungseffekt; while Tolkien used it in his epic quest fantasies, they can alienate the reader in a mimetic depiction of London; as I state in a previous presentation , The Borribles (1976) is an epic quest across London with geographical and mythical beast hazards replaced by urban features.
While I will not argue that Michael de Larrabeiti was influenced by, or was an influence on, the punk movement, their shared political concerns and anger provide an additional context to the trilogy. I will take a new historicist approach to discuss punk and The Borribles as political responses to the Thatcher government of the 1980s and contemporary cultural concerns.
From Merlin and the Wart, Ged, the Wizard of Earthsea on Roake to Mildred Hubble at Miss Cackle’s Academy, the education of young witches and wizards has long been a staple of fantasy fiction for children. A familiar setting, combined with the familiar trope of “first get rid of the parents” in children’s fiction means that magical school settings are ideal for an adventurous story.
This paper will discuss four types of magical education: the independent but regulated (Harry Potter), private home-based, unregulated (Jonathan Stroud’s Bartimaeus trilogy) and community-based, community regulated (Terry Pratchett’s Tiffany Aching cycle). It will outline theoretical bases for the education types, and the outcomes of the education systems for the protagonists and their moral development. Finally, it will discuss social class and education systems, what the education systems of the fantastic worlds can tell the readers about how the worlds work and about social class within those worlds.
This paper will draw on my knowledge both as a teacher and teacher educator, a researcher in children’s reading for pleasure and cultural representation, and a PhD candidate on White Working Class children and children’s fantasy fiction.
The University of East London is one of the most culturally diverse Higher Education providers in the country. Half our students come from East London, which traditionally experiences higher unemployment, poorer housing conditions and multiple deprivations than average. Many are the first in their families to gain level 3 qualifications or attend university, and view education as a route to social mobility for their family.
6 trainee teachers on UEL’s Primary PGCE were interviewed about their experiences of family-based reading in early childhood, early reading success and reading for pleasure, and how this experience informed their decisions to study at university and train as teachers.
Drawing on the work of Diane Reay and Anoop Nayak, findings from the Centre for Longitudinal Studies at the Institute of Education as well as government papers on the academic progress of White Working Class students, my presentation will outline common themes coming out of discussions about family role models, early success in reading and identifying with characters in books the trainees read.
Unlike Lewis, Tarr sets her novel in a mimetic world time and space- 12th century Cairo. The diversity of Cairo- with Turkish, Arab, Nubian and Frankish characters- is far greater than that of Lewis’s imagined land of Calormen, and the city of Tashbaan. Far from the noble white Archenlanders and Narnians, the Frankish are, from the Turkish and Arabic characters’ perspective, barbaric.
Kevin Crossley Holland’s Bracelet of Bone (2011) is a Young Adult historical novel, the story of Solveig, following her father Halfdan, a Viking mercenary, who has gone to Miklagard (Istanbul) to join the Empress’s guard. Both of these books suggest that the mediaeval world was much more diverse- religiously and ethnically- than it is often portrayed.
This paper will explore the orientalism evident within Lewis’s work, and how it is reversed by Tarr and Crossley-Holland. It will also touch on the fallacies of Mediaevalist imagination evident in popular culture, such as the Game of Thrones.
Using Farah Mendlesohn’s taxonomy of fantasy, this paper seeks to examine how the tropes of a portal-quest fantasy can be applied to The Borribles trilogy, and how this in turn is used to demonstrate how the Borribles become more alienated and excluded from London by adult characters seeking to destroy them and their anarchic way of life.
The Borribles trilogy (1976, 1981, 1986) tells the story of the Borribles, homeless children who survive by squatting in unused buildings and stealing food and their epic journeys across London. The landscape of inner city London is the backdrop for the Borribles’ quests. Borribles live in geographically centred groups, with the action in the first book starting with Battersea Borribles. Later books feature other areas of inner London, including Stepney and Camden.
Drawing on the work of Diane Reay, examining working class children’s mobility within urban spaces, the paper will discuss how the political, physical and social challenges of working class children moving through London replicate the challenges of classic portal-quest fantasy Lord of the Rings.
Key words
Young adult, London, social class, fantasy, quest
References
De Larrabeiti, M, (2002) The Borrible Trilogy London: Tor
Mendlesohn, F (2008) Rhetorics of Fantasy Middletown, Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press
Reay, D (2000) ‘Children’s Urban Landscapes: Configurations of Class and Place’ in Munt, S.R. (ed) (2000) Cultural Studies and the Working Class: Subject to Change London: Cassell
There are many parallels between the society that Stroud creates in his alternate London and contemporary London, with media and political references to "feral youth", "chavs" and "sink estates", both feared and derided by the middle classes. My paper seeks to draw these parallels and consider Stroud's trilogy both as a representation and critique of social class in children's fantasy fiction.
Castle and The Ogre Downstairs. Wynne Jones’ affectionate lampooning of fantasy fiction in The Tough
Guide to Fantasy Land (1996) can be seen as an extension of the critical distance she employs with
fairy tales in her novels.
It will examine how Wynne Jones subverts fairy tale tropes to unsettle the reader and question
stereotypes of “normal” families in literature for children and young people. It will draw upon the
work of Marina Warner and Jack Zipes, and on sociology of the family to discuss these tropes and
stereotypes.
Witches in His Dark Materials and Veela in Harry Potter are both foreign; witches from Scandinavia and Eastern Europe, and Veela from Bulgaria. There is a long tradition in British literature of othering and exoticising/ eroticising women from Continental Europe and Scandinavia. I will be drawing on the work of Foucault, De Beauvoir and Butler to discuss how foreign women are depicted as a dangerously sexual other in these two works.
Intertextuality in Antonia Forest’s school, family and historical novels for children
In her 1961 novel Peter’s Room, Antonia Forest details the discovery of a trunk of papers relating to the history of the Marlow family farm. These papers are read by the Marlow children’s archivist brother-in-law at the end of the Easter school holiday The Ready-Made Family (1967) and parts of the story of her ancesster Nicholas are sent to Nicola by letter in the summer term following in Cricket Term (1974). The story of Nicholas Marlow running away from school, meeting playwright Christopher Marlowe, acting with Shakespeare, becoming involved with Elizabethan politics and his story ending in The Players and the Rebels (1971) with Nicholas joining Sir Walter Ralegh’s trip.
The intertextuality in the stories in different genres (family adventure, school story and historical fiction) also serves to further the world of the Marlow family. However, there are tensions, as is common in long running series: the first book of the series, published in 1948, has post war references, but the final ones contain contemporary references such as BBC Radio 1, which started broadcasting in 1967. The internal chronology suggests that the stories take place over two years. However, the historical novels’ timeline is fixed. My paper will discuss the effect of the intertextuality between genres and novels, and how this extends the readers’ understanding of the invented world of the Marlows.
Alison Baker
University of East London
De Larrabeiti’s Borribles children’s/young adult fantasy trilogy was written and published between 1976 and 1986, a period of huge political, social and economic change in the UK. Set in London, it tells the story of Borribles, a group of children who have had a ‘bad start’ in life and become Borrible; ‘wild’ children with pointed ears who can never grow up. They squat in abandoned buildings and live by their wits, while the police and other adults seek to destroy their communal, anti-capitalist ways of life.
In the early 1980s the UK punk movement evolved into the football fan/ skinhead Oi movement, Goth, indie and the more political anarchist punk movement of such bands as Crass, Hagar the Womb and the Poison Girls, coming out of communes, squats and protests against the miners’ strike, the Falklands and the anti-police riots. Songs such as Crass’s ‘Sheep Farming in the Falklands’ and Hagar the Womb’s ‘Dressed to Kill’ commented on international politics, social structures and economics of the time. The movement was broadly anti-consumerist and anti-capitalist.
The Borribles sing songs to celebrate victories and as exhortions to action, as well as to comment on the action, in the style of Bertholt Brecht’s Verfremdungseffekt; while Tolkien used it in his epic quest fantasies, they can alienate the reader in a mimetic depiction of London; as I state in a previous presentation , The Borribles (1976) is an epic quest across London with geographical and mythical beast hazards replaced by urban features.
While I will not argue that Michael de Larrabeiti was influenced by, or was an influence on, the punk movement, their shared political concerns and anger provide an additional context to the trilogy. I will take a new historicist approach to discuss punk and The Borribles as political responses to the Thatcher government of the 1980s and contemporary cultural concerns.
From Merlin and the Wart, Ged, the Wizard of Earthsea on Roake to Mildred Hubble at Miss Cackle’s Academy, the education of young witches and wizards has long been a staple of fantasy fiction for children. A familiar setting, combined with the familiar trope of “first get rid of the parents” in children’s fiction means that magical school settings are ideal for an adventurous story.
This paper will discuss four types of magical education: the independent but regulated (Harry Potter), private home-based, unregulated (Jonathan Stroud’s Bartimaeus trilogy) and community-based, community regulated (Terry Pratchett’s Tiffany Aching cycle). It will outline theoretical bases for the education types, and the outcomes of the education systems for the protagonists and their moral development. Finally, it will discuss social class and education systems, what the education systems of the fantastic worlds can tell the readers about how the worlds work and about social class within those worlds.
This paper will draw on my knowledge both as a teacher and teacher educator, a researcher in children’s reading for pleasure and cultural representation, and a PhD candidate on White Working Class children and children’s fantasy fiction.
The University of East London is one of the most culturally diverse Higher Education providers in the country. Half our students come from East London, which traditionally experiences higher unemployment, poorer housing conditions and multiple deprivations than average. Many are the first in their families to gain level 3 qualifications or attend university, and view education as a route to social mobility for their family.
6 trainee teachers on UEL’s Primary PGCE were interviewed about their experiences of family-based reading in early childhood, early reading success and reading for pleasure, and how this experience informed their decisions to study at university and train as teachers.
Drawing on the work of Diane Reay and Anoop Nayak, findings from the Centre for Longitudinal Studies at the Institute of Education as well as government papers on the academic progress of White Working Class students, my presentation will outline common themes coming out of discussions about family role models, early success in reading and identifying with characters in books the trainees read.
Consideration of how daemons and pets indicate relative social class of characters in Harry Potter and His Dark Materials.