British Children's Fiction in the Second World War

The study is contextualised through a consideration of the British fiction exported to the USA, as well as that imported to the UK and through an exploration of wartime Europe as it was shown to British children. Questions of leadership, authority, individualism, community, conformity, urban-rural division, ageism, and gender awareness are explored. In this incredibly broad-ranging book, covering over 100 writers, Owen Dudley Edwards looks at the literary inheritance when the war broke out and asks whether children's literary diet was altered in the war temporarily or permanently. Concerned with the effects of the war on what children could read and their interpretation of it, he reveals the implications of this for the world they would come to inhabit. Written by the prolific and highly-respected Owen Dudley Edwards, this work will tap into 'nostalgia' market and general readership amongst those with an interest in the Second World War. It is immensely broad-ranging, covering over 100 writers. It provides telling insight to the effects of children's reading on the post-war world they came to inhabit.