Kimberley Reynolds is the Professor of Children's Literature in the School of English Literature, Language and Linguistics at Newcastle University in the UK. She has served on the boards of a number of national and international organisations, is a Past President of the International Research Society for Children's Literature, and was the first Senior Honorary Research Fellow at the ARC Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions at the University of Western Australia. She has lectured and published widely on a variety of aspects of children's literature. Her monograph, Radical Children's Literature: Future Visions and Aesthetic Transformations (2007) received the Children's Book Award for 2009. In 2013 she received the International Brothers Grimm Award for scholarly contributions to the field of children's literature studies.

Jane Rosen is a Librarian who works in Special Libraries. She is currently employed in a national museum. Her research interests include radical and working-class children's literature and education, and she has presented papers on the subject at several international conferences. She has also published reviews and articles in a variety of publications including an essay on The Young Socialist in Little Red Readings: Historical Materialist Perspectives on Children's Literature (2014).

Michael Rosen is the Professor of Children's Literature at Goldsmiths, University of London. He has been teaching children's literature on MA courses since 1993 at University of North London/London Metropolitan University and Birkbeck, prior to his tenure at Goldsmiths. Since 1974 he has published over 150 books for children (poetry, picture book texts, fiction, non-fiction), including We're Going on a Bear Hunt (illustrated by Helen Oxenbury), The Sad Book (illustrated by Quentin Blake), and Quick Let's Get Out of Here (illustrated by Quentin Blake). His books for adults include Alphabetical, how every letter tells a story (John Murray) and The Disappearance of Emile Zola: Love, Literature and the Dreyfus Case (Faber and Faber). He has been broadcasting on BBC World Service and Radio 4 and 3 since 1987, and hosts BBC Radio 4's 'Word of Mouth'. He writes a monthly column in Guardian Education, a column in the New Humanist, and is poet-in-residence on 'The Teacher'.

• Preface


• Acknowledgements


• Introduction


• Part 1: Stories for young socialists


• 'King Midas' published in The Young Socialist (1902)


• From 'The Coal Cargo' in Pages for Young Socialists (1913)


• 'Greed the Guy' from Tomfooleries (1920) and 'The First of May' from Moonshine (1921)


• 'The Story of the Island of Fish' from Eddie and the Gipsy (1935)


• From Adventures of the Little Pig and other stories (1936)


• From Hue and Cry (1956)


• Mickey the Mongrel, the class conscious dog No. 2, 'Whitewash' (Daily Worker 3 January, 1930)


• Part 2: The war against war


• From War in Dollyland (1915)


• 'Don't Shoot Your Class!' from The Revolution (1918)


• From Not So Quiet: Stepdaughters of War (1930)


• 'A Life with a Purpose - or a grave in Malaya' from Challenge (1949)


• 'Last Night I had the Strangest Dream' (1950)


• Part 3: Writing and revolution


• 'Little Peter' from Proletcult (1.9, 1922)


• 'Steel Spokes' from Martin's Annual (1931)


• The Red Corner Book for Children, title page, frontispiece and miscellaneous items (1931)


• 'The People Speak' from Bows Against the Barons (1934)


• 'Lower Ranks' from A White Sail Gleams (1936)


• 'How Till Bought Land in Luneburg' from The Amazing Pranks of Master Till Eulenspiegel (1936)


• 'Little Tusker's Own Paper,' Daily Worker (1945)


• Mickey the Mongrel, the class conscious dog No. 7, 'Selling' (Daily Worker 11 January, 1930)


• Part 4: Of Russia with love


• From The Diary of a Communist Schoolboy (1928)


• 'A New Kind of Park' from Red Comet (1937)


• Wash 'Em Clean (1923)


• What is Good and What is Bad (1925)


• From Timur and his Comrades (1943)


• 'The Telephone' from Jolly Family (1950)


• Part 5: Examples from life


• 'Safar the Hero' from Folk Tales of the Peoples of the Soviet Union (1945)


• Extracts from Tomorrow is a New Day: A Youth Edition (1945)


• Come In (1946)


• 'The First Labour M.P.'; 'Hunger Strike Heroine'; 'In Great-Great-Great Grandfather's Day: A historian tells the story of the 'Battle of Peterloo'' from Daily Worker Children's Annual (1957)


• Karl Marx: Founder of Modern Communism (1963)


• Mickey the Mongrel, the class conscious dog No. 14, 'Bertram Bulldog' (Daily Worker 18 January, 1930)


• Part 6: Performing leftness


• The World's May Day: A Celebration (1924)


• From The Big Rock Candy Mountain (1955)


• Selected 'Songs of Struggle' from If I had a Song: a song book for children growing up (1954)


• Songs for Elfins (selected songs, c. 1950)


• Part 7: Fighting fascism


• 'Side-light on the Blackshirts' and 'Fight War and Fascism' from Out of Bounds: Public Schools' Journal against Fascism, Militarism and Reaction (1934)


• 'Red Front' from Martin's Annual (1935)


• 'Blacking His Shirt' from Martin's Annual (1935)


• Extracts from 'I For Influenza' from Rescue in Ravensdale (1946)


• Mickey the Mongrel, the class conscious dog No. 46, 'Lionel Lapdog' (Daily Worker 27 February, 1930)


• Part 8: Science and social transformation


• 'The Child of the Future' from The Young Socialist (1913)


• 'The Beginning of Trade' from Pollycon (1933)


• 'Whatever Happens' from The Radium Woman (1937)


• 'The Fate of Books' from Black on White (1942)


• Extracts from The Magic of Coal (1945)


• Extracts from 'Numbers and Nothing' from Man Must Measure (1955)


• Part 9: Sex for beginners


• From 'Sex Knowledge' in Proletcult (1923)


• Extracts from How You Began (1928)


• 'Hero-Worship Adrift: Film-Star Hero or Games Mistress?' and 'Morning Glory (Sex in Public Schools)' from Out of Bounds: Public Schools' Journal against Fascism, Militarism and Reaction (1934)


• Extracts from 'Physiology' from An Outline for Boys and Girls and Their Parents (1932)


• Mickey the Mongrel, the class conscious dog 335, 'Air Display' (Daily Worker 1 January, 1932)


• Part 10: Visions of the future


• 'The Sorry Present and the Expelled Little Boy' from The Story of the Amulet (1906)


• Extracts from New Russia's Primer: Story of the Five-Year Plan (1931)


• Extracts from 'Problems and Solutions' in Naomi Mitchison, ed. extracts from An Outline for Boys and Girls and Their Parents (1932)


• 'Danger! High Tension!' from The 35th of May, or Conrad's Ride to the South Seas (1933)


• Extracts from Village and Town (1942)


• Mickey the Mongrel, the class conscious dog (unnumbered final Mickey the Mongrel cartoon, Daily Worker 1 January, 1932)


• Works cited


• Index