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Children's Literature in Educatio~ VoL 22, No. t, 1991 Having been a teacher, school librarian, and lecturer at Bede College, Durham University, David Self is now a full-time writer. He is the author of many school textbooks and works regularly as a scriptwriter of children's programmes for both BBC Radio and BBC Television. David Sek r A Lost Asset? The Historical Novel in the Classroom "Historical fiction is a medium which should be taken seriously by historians, especially socialist ones." So wrote Anna Davin in the first issue of the History Workshop Journal in 1976 (quoted in Elizabeth Grugeon and Peter Walden). Political commitments aside, it is re- markable that historical novels written for children are not indeed enjoying greater popularity, given the desire of many history teachers (especially in Britain) to encourage "empathy" with those living in a given age, and also given the desire of writers to create a historical realism that encourages young readers to respond, ''Yes, that's how it must have been." When the issue is put to Martin Roberts, chairman of the education committee of Britain's Historical Association (and himself a head teacher), he expresses both surprise and agreement. "Yes, why don't we talk more about fiction?" he muses. And a leading children's pub- lisher, Belinda Hollyer of the Bodley Head, also sees the paradox: "If empathy does not mean reading books about people, what does it mean?" But as we enter this last decade of the century, historical fiction is firmly out of fashion. Even the leading exponent of the genre, Rose- mary Sutcliff herself, accepts this to be the case: "The publishing world gets so pressurised not to stretch children. And teachers want noLh- ing outside the child's world." Another distinguished practioner, Leon Garfield, recently used the School Library Association's annum conference to weigh in against the fashion for contemporary teenage 45 0045-6713/91/05(10-0()45t06.50 (r I~.li tlumln <~iellic~ 1 less, Inc

A lost asset? the historical novel in the classroom

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Children's Literature in Educatio~ VoL 22, No. t, 1991

Having been a teacher, school librarian, and lecturer at Bede College, Durham University, David Self is now a full-time writer. He is the author of many school textbooks and works regularly as a scriptwriter of children's programmes for both BBC Radio and BBC Television.

David Sek r

A Lost Asset? The Historical N o v e l in the C l a s s r o o m

"Historical fiction is a medium which should be taken seriously by historians, especially socialist ones." So wrote Anna Davin in the first issue of the History Workshop Journal in 1976 (quoted in Elizabeth Grugeon and Peter Walden). Political commitments aside, it is re- markable that historical novels written for children are not indeed enjoying greater popularity, given the desire of many history teachers (especially in Britain) to encourage "empathy" with those living in a given age, and also given the desire of writers to create a historical realism that encourages young readers to respond, ''Yes, that's how it must have been."

When the issue is put to Martin Roberts, chairman of the education committee of Britain's Historical Association (and himself a head teacher), he expresses both surprise and agreement. "Yes, why don't we talk more about fiction?" he muses. And a leading children's pub- lisher, Belinda Hollyer of the Bodley Head, also sees the paradox: "If empathy does not mean reading books about people, what does it mean?"

But as we enter this last decade of the century, historical fiction is firmly out of fashion. Even the leading exponent of the genre, Rose- mary Sutcliff herself, accepts this to be the case: "The publishing world gets so pressurised not to stretch children. And teachers want noLh- ing outside the child's world." Another distinguished practioner, Leon Garfield, recently used the School Library Association's annum conference to weigh in against the fashion for contemporary teenage

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46 Children's Literature in Education

Rosemary Sutcliff, The Eagle of the Ninth

fiction, much of which he feels is no more than "an excuse for por- nography."

But how new is this conviction? Ten years ago, when Chris K i l t was young people 's librarian for Tameside (a district near Manchester), she wrote that historical fiction was "a minority taste." Now she is publisher and editor of children's books at Gollancz (Garfield's hard- back publishers), she still acknowledges that teachers find it "a hard job" introducing the genre to ch i ld ren- -even though it is increas- ingly concerned with "ordinary people" and less wRh the great and the good: "Kids don' t go off and choose a historical novel. It tends to be the more literary ones who do tha tmunless it's girls who wil| move on to the adult bodice-ripping stuff."

Belinda Hollyer points out that Rosemary Sutcliff novels continue to sell but admits she would be reluctant to take on a new historical writer. At Methuen, Miriam Hodgson agrees: "I would have the most awful difficulty in persuading my colleagues to let me take on a new historical novel. If it's superbly written, that's d i f fe rent - -but to a new author I 'd say, 'We're finding it impossible to sell.'"

On the other hand, adult historical fiction sells very well, thank you. But although Georget te Heyer and Jean Plaidy (who also writes as Philippa Carr and Victoria Holt) have their many fans, they gain little critical respect. Despite being based on careful research, their novels are dismissed as "historical romances" in the way that it is now fash- ionable in some circles to put down television "costume drama" as escapism. As Anna Davin suggests, "History has the solemn dignity of an academic discipline, while the humble story is an indulgence."

Almost the opposite used to be the casc in thc world of children's fiction. In 1972 The Times Literary Supplement was able to pontiff- cate: "The historical novel for children has for many years set a stan- dard by which other writing has been judged." That such a claim could then have been fairly made was due perhaps more to the achievement of Rosemary Sutcliff than to any other writer. Her writ- ing career began in 1950 but it was her Roman sequence (beginning with The Eagle of the Ninth) that first won her wide acclaim. Though she has always made demands on her young readers, she writes with passion, insight and what she calls "a sense of history." As one critic has written, "She is concerned with recreating history itself."

She herself has said she believes a good historical novel gives a sense of "the living process." There is no doubt that her latest work (The Shining Company, Bodley Head, London 1990) does precisely that. For it, she has chosen an original and intriguing starting point: The

A Lost Asset? 47

Rosemary Sutcliff, The Shining Company

Gododdin. This is the earliest surviving North British poem and is a lament for a band of three hundred (a magic number) called the Shining Company. Drawn from tribes ranging from North Wales, up through Strathclyde and from "Pictland," they were summoned (around the year 600 a.o.) by Mynydogg, King of the Gododdin, to his tribal capital Dyn Eidin (now Edinburgh). There, on the ridge be- tween the Castle Rock and Arthur's Seat, his young warriors trained and were welded into a disciplined brotherhood. Eventually they went south, past Caer Lull (Carlisle), across the Penuin (Penn/ne) Hills, to what is still called Scotch Corner. In battle against the Angles from Deira (Yorkshire) and Bernicia (Northumbria), they were ut- terly defeated. One of the few survivors was the minstrel Aneirin. His poem is their memorial.

It is a tribute to Miss Sutcliff that, despite the difficult names, the shadowy characters from a little-known age, and a downbeat ending, she has fleshed out a compelling story. She has molded and sifted her research to create an understanding of that forgotten age- -and espe- cially its young people (a group little noted in historical documents). She admits to some "imaginative bridging" where gaps exist in our knowledge but claims "never knowingly to have falsified the facts" and feels that The Shining Company, like her other books, is indeed a "history."

Leon Garfield, Revolution. t

At the other end of the spectrum, Leon Garfield makes no such claim for his work: "It's a mixture of history, fantasy and story-teUing. One's own feelings inevitably come out in the writing. I hope the spirit is more accurate than the letter." For Garfield is concerned not only with the past. He hopes to offer "images of today and possibly an image of tomorrow"; even "the shock of recognizing yourself in an earlier age," as, for example, in his novel Revolut ion. t Originally pub- lished as The Prisoners o f September, it is a story of two young En- glishmen caught up on opposite sides of the French Revolution, which (he hopes) illustrates "the duplicity of' our rulers, the devious- ness of politicians and of those in the Foreign Office." But does that mean he is intent on politicizing his young readers? "Politics must enter their lives as soon as possible. It's ridiculous to leave it until the tabloid press tells them how to vote."

Nina Bawden, Carrie's War; Robert Westall, The Machine Gunners

Sutclit~s concentration on early British history may exclude her from British secondary-school history syllabuses, which tend to concen- trate on more recent centuries. Garfield's sometimes heady mix of politics and adventure may exclude him for othcr reasons, but some writers have made it (and continue to make it) to the his to~ ~ class- room. Treece on the Vikings and Nina Bawden and Robert Westail on World War' II (with Carrie's War and The Machine Gunners, respec-

48 Children's Literature in Education

tively) all work well. Martin Roberts directs students to Dickens' Hard Times, and Chris Culpin (a textbook author and chief history examiner for the London and East Anglian GCSE Group) regularly uses excerpts from Mrs. Gaskell, Thomas Hardy, and Flora Thompson as source material.

But there remains almost a fear, a mistrust of fiction among histo- rians. In her History Workshop Journal article quoted earlier, Anna Davin spelt out that mistrust: "Stories have been replaced by text- books. Stories are dangerous: they are fiction, not fact; they- engage the emotions where detachment is all; they are contaminated by imagination." Martin Roberts can understand this anxiety: "I suspect it's because a skiUs-based approach to history leads teachers to con- centrate on factual evidence. After all, over the last fifteen years, the major development has been the use of source material."

Chris Culpin reiterates the history teacher's "anxiety of mixing fic- tion and fact" and desire to present history as a "hard-edged, fact- based subject." As another teacher and textbook author, Christopher Daniels, says, novels can "people a place" for eleven- and twelve-year- olds, but "When you can use the Diary of Anne Frank, you don' t need to go to fiction." Or as Culpin puts it, "Teachers are making every effort to root empathy work in fact."

Bd Mooney, The Stove Haunting

The view of literature as an indulgence (compared with the aca- demic discipline of history) together with fiction's being "too far fic- tion" ( to quote Martin Roberts) is exactly what might keep a novel such as Bel Mooney's The Stove Haunting out of a history syllabus. This less-than-well-known novel is part fantasy, part history. Its young hero's parents are gentrifying a country rectory in the West Country: "Extra central h e a t i n g . . , more b o o k s h e l v e s . . , pine kitchen units." The builders uncover an old kitchen stove with which young Daniel develops a strange affinity. Mysteriously, he slips back in time to the days of the Tolpuddle Martyrs. Time travel is fantasy; the novel can- not therefore be historical; yet the twentieth-century child's adven- tures in 1835 give an extraordinarily vivid understanding of the so- cial history of that period. (The iniquities of the landowners and the tribulations of the workers remain clearly in my mind four years after I read the book.)

This then is the great potential of the historical novel, according to Rosemary Sutcliff (who does not in fact mix fantasy with fact). "Fic- tion fleshes out the bare bones." Chris Culpin, too, believes that his- torians might regard the novel more favorably, not just by selecting excerpts as source material but by using complete novels "to build up a sense of period" and to illustrate attitudes, values, and belief.

A Los t Asset? 49

Rosemary Sutcliff, The Witch's Brat

What is more, the National Curriculum itself sees a place for fiction in the teaching of history--explici t ly with the under-sevens but a~so, when comparing accounts of historical or "mythological" characters and events, at other levels.

English teachers and librarians seeking "the wider range" (Garfield's phrase) available in historical as opposed to contemporary fiction might also rediscover the excellence noted by The T i m e s Li terary

S u p p l e m e n t over fifteen years ago. Take Rosema~/ Sutclil~s The

Wi tch 's BraL Geographical and historical background detail may overfill the first two chapters, along with some rather contrived "re- alism" as in the references to "the thick lumpy stirabout" in its wooden bowl and in Grandmother's advice: "Always go with the sun. �9 . . Against the sun is widdershins, that is for the Black Magic." But after this c rowded opening, the young crippled hero, Lovel, settles an an abbey, where he helps the friars in their daily tasks, develops his inherited healing skill, and then follows Rahere (a well-documented character: he was iester to King Henry I) to London. There, by learn- ing to heal the sick, Lovel learns to accept his own deformity~ Quite simply, it is a very much better (and more useful) book than some contrived bibliotherapy on the lines of "Sammy Has a Withered Arm."

Given the so-called heritage boom, and given the popularity of gothic fantasy, there is no reason why well-written, factually based historical novels should not return to fashion--particularly if publishers are prepared to encourage and librarimas to promote those writers blessed with the double gifts of storytelling and truth-telling. We might even recapture that so-called Golden Age of children's fiction when Treece and Trease, K. M. Peyton, Barbara Willard, Cynthia Har- nett, and (of course) Sutcliff and Garfield were minstrels revered as was Aneirin in his century.

References

Bawden, Nina, Carrie's War. New YorR: Lippincott, i973. Garfield, Leon, Revolution. t ix)ndon: Lion Teen Tracks, 1989. Grugeon, Elizabeth, and Walden, Peters, eds., Literature and Learning, ~ n -

don: Ward Lock Educational, 1978. Mooney, Bel, The Stove Itaunting. London: Mcthuen, 198(~.