Figure 1.--The children have a wide ranging taste in books. This of course is greatly affected by their ages. Many of the older boys enjoy mysteries and of course no one does mysteries better than the British. |
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The children's taste in books is quite electic. The titles of course vary over times. Children's authors like Roald Dahl are popular with the younger children when we visited in the 1980s. We saw the boys reading The BFG and James and the Giant Peach, but other titles were popular as well. The girls enjoyed the popular series like Nancy Drew. Throughout the schools children can normally perusing a variety of non-fiction books. Boys and girls differewidely on the books chosen. The boys tend to favor books on dinasaours, other animals, adventures, military history, cars, and sports. The girls often choose books on animals (here dinasaours are not such a favorite but horses are), and dance. The older children at about 12-13 years old begin to choose more adult novels. Mysteries seemed to have been especially popular. Most prep school strongly promote free reading. Some schools carefully monitor reading to mske sure the children "suitable" books. Usuall the children are not allowed to read comic books.
One aspect of propmoting reading is making books available to the children. The schools have libraries where the children can check out books, although often the book collections are weak. This is one of the weaker aspects of many of the schools we visited. Some schools. Some schools organize visits to local libraries or book mobile visits. A very common procedure is to allow the children to purchase paperbacks through the school.
... a supplementary Paperback Library shelf has been started in the English Department and any copies of books which you have enjoyed and are still in good condition will be mot gratefully received.
PG, The School Record (Beachborough School), September 1979.
The shop had another successful year and the takings exceeded last year's record total. Established favourites such as H.G. wells, John Wyndham, Alastair Maclean and Sir A. Conan Doyle again featured prominently among purchases by the seniors and Willard Price, Roald Dahl, Rosemary Sutcliffe and Penelope Lively were some of the junior's favourite authors. Plastic book covers and colourful book plates were stocked for the first time and both proved popular.
Beaudesert Park Magazine, Autumn 1978.
All of the schools encourage the children to read. Some are more creative and put more effort on this than others. The teachers in the younger forms might read a book in chapters to the children to help get them interested in books. This has multiplier affectas the chikldren can borrow each others books. Some schools arrange competitions concerning booksof various kinds. And they are allowed to read during the rest period after lunch. Some schools actually have dedicated reading periods. All these efforts varied greatly from school to school. Many schools were quite successful with this effort as we saw quite a few children reading on their own. It was not uncommon to see about half the children reading in their beds fter lunch or befor lights out at night. .
Reading is encouraged. The School possesses a fine library of recreational and reference books and in addition the senior boys also visit fortnightly the Travelling County Library.
Beachborough Prospectus
We noted quite a number of particularly popular books.
This term there has been a craze on "Football '78s". This is a book containing all the first division teams, also it has a badge and a sticker of the second division teams, besides the Scottish teams. You have to collect stickers and try to fill the book. The book costs ten pence and every packet of six stickers costs five pence. In the whole book there are 525 stickers you have to get. You sometimes find the teams are not up to date though, it jut depends on whether a tean hs recently sild or bought a player. Most of the people in form IV have got this book and a lot of boys gave only a few stickes to get before they completely fill a book. You can get the books and the packet of stickers from your newsagent,
Richard Wilson, 11.4, The Bramcote Magazine, Autumn 1978
