Causes and Rebels
Odd Boy Out. By M. E. Buckingham. (Faber, 16s.) Marlborough. Written by the Boys. (Kenneth Mason, 18s.) PINT-SIZED rebels without causes may worry social workers but their struggles in children's books make fine reading. When the maladjusted young ones kick against the various forms of educational strait-jacketing as well as plain adult cussedness, their rebellion has added pun- gency. The authors of children's books are clearly on the side of the misfits. Today's Oliver Twists seem to be the children who suffer be- neath fusty, formalised teaching—an original or potentially beautiful mind ignored, or, if ob- served, liable to persecution.
Writers or poets in embryo are particularly prone to slow burial under the years' accumu- lation of unimaginative teaching. A clear case of academic victimisation is that of the twelve- year-old schoolgirl, Penny Pennington, in Penny's Way, by Mary K. Harris, who has given up all thoughts of writing when we are first introduced to her because she feels too weighted down by homework she doesn't understand. This engaging lid sister,' who loves to crawl up into her loft-bedroom to devour Pride and Prejudice and has published a poem, is in the 'C' stream of her second form at grammar school and floundering even there.
Hell's Edge, by John Rowe Townsend, reads like a Room at the Top for adolescents and deserves to do just as well with this age group
Set in a murky Victorian mill town in the West Riding of Yorkshire, the book makes the reader aware of the gap between the dwellers, in black- ened terrace-houses and the elegant life of the ruling family, who own most of the loose money around, as well as a good portion of the town's land.
George Clyde, the precocious Six-year-old in M. E. Buckingham's Odd Boy Out, is the arch non-hero of the primary school world. Born frail, he is cosseted by his mother and grand- mother and gently detested by his older brothers and father. He is thought 'too nervy' to go to school at five, so is taught by his bright grand- mother who spoon-feeds learning into his avid brain, using such teaching aids as coloured chalk.
Unfortunately for George, the crunch doesn't come when he belatedly goes to school. He wraps up his teacher into a nice state of sub- rhissiveness by knowing all the answers and helping her with some of the more stupid boys, an unaltruistic exercise enjoyed because of the superior position in which it places him.
The author's knowledge of the workings of this 'terrible' child's mind is uncanny; we can feel and sympathise with his contempt for the grown-up world and share his preference for rough nature. He keeps a 'Book of Information,' jottings on wild life, and is probably going to be a great naturalist. Either this or a criminal— the line never seemed finer.
Francesca Enns relates her teaching experi- ences in No Angels, a harrowing logbook of daily encounters with delinquents that evokes Blackboard Jungle. A mature sixth-former, anxious to teach secondary modern school, would do well to read it.
It is almost impossible not to be stunned by the smugness of Marlburians after reading of Miss Enns's unfortunates, 'removed' from all hope and privilege as well as the wretched upper 'streams.' Written by the boys themselves, Marlborough attempts to give an incoming Marlburian an idea of what to expect of the conventions, work attitudes, pursuits and history of the school. A description of the sporting activities alone sounds charming, old-fashioned and exclusive: badger-watching, greyhound- coursing, falconry, trout-poaching ('poaching, though not flourishing at. Marlborough, is not frowned upon').
RUTH LANODON
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