Author Archives: Christina Egan
If childhood is an invention, how did children once grow up?
‘Education’ stands for blackboards and computers, school benches and sculleries, china dolls or rag dolls, pies and puddings and a roast goose or bowls of pallid porridge. At the Institute of Education, beyond schooling, studying, and training, ‘Education’ encompasses bringing … Continue reading
Facets of Dickens’ world at the Newsam Library
Two current exhibitions on Charles Dickens, reviewed on this blog, draw you into children’s worlds in the 19th century. You imagine, perhaps, reading or being read to from an illustrated volume of stories on a cosy armchair, by the glow … Continue reading
The ‘gloomy sky’ and the ‘ruddy glow’ of Dickens’ London
“It was a Sunday evening in London, gloomy, close and stale… Nothing to see but streets, streets, streets. Nothing to breathe but streets, streets, streets.” A ‘Dickensian’ world has become a figure of speech, evoking grim workhouses and haunted graveyards, frosty … Continue reading
Posted in History of Education
Tagged Charles Dickens, child labour, childhood, Christmas, exhibitions, fiction, London, museums, novels, orphans, poverty, social history, Victorians
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How wooden bricks can build a world : the Play Well exhibition at the Wellcome Gallery
Little wooden cubes and balls, plain and smooth, tiny wooden squares and triangles, painted in primary colours, all elevated to the status of exhibits in glass cases. Contemporary art perhaps? Much better. The next case shows a wooden model of … Continue reading
Posted in History of Education
Tagged dolls, exhibitions, Froebel, gender roles, history of education, outdoor learning, play, Reggio Emilia, toy bricks, toys
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Off to work in bowler-hats and bonnets
The blurred black-and-white photograph showed a man in a bowler-hat with a walking-stick rushing up a multi-storey staircase to demonstrate how quickly he climbs up in his career in a certain bank. It caught my eye in the 1963 edition … Continue reading
Books that make bricks talk
Talking squirrels or lions or butterflies dart out of children’s books regularly, so you would barely be stirred by them while studying near the teachers’ collection at the Newsam Library. On cataloguing some piles of picture books, however, I was … Continue reading
Posted in Curriculum Resources
Tagged children's books, Curriculum Resources, picture books
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Superheroes and real-life heroes haunt the library
Over the summer, many bright and shiny books will be smuggled onto the shelves by busy librarians and also flash the message from the catalogue: ‘Graphic novel’. There will be far more than the Newsam Library ever held in its … Continue reading
