North-east childhoods : regional identity in children's novels of the North East of England

Abstract

This thesis explores how children's writers have participated in the process of representing and constructing the identity of the North East of England. It argues that there exists a dominant North-East aesthetic which has become deeply embedded within British children's fiction, and that several of its key motifs (labour, industry and decline; traditional gender roles and landscape) recur frequently within portrayals of the region in writing for the young. This aesthetic contributes to a perception of the region as both marginal and marginalised, and masks realities about the North East. Following an overview of children's literature set in the region, from the late nineteenth to the early twenty-first centuries, the focus moves to the work of Robert Westall, a major children's writer who was born in Tyneside and set much of h'is fiction within the region. The Westall chapters draw on the Robert Westall Collection at Seven Stories: The Centre for Children's Books. The more recent work of North-East writer David Almond is considered in the closing chapters which also draw on unpublished material and interviews for this thesis. Key works discussed: Robert Westall, Falling into Glory, Fathom Five, The Kingdom by the Sea, The Machine Gunners, A Time of Fire, The Wind Eye, The Watch House; David Almond, Clay, The Fire-Eaters, Heaven Eyes, Kit's Wilderness, My Dad's a Birdman, The Savage, Secret Heart, Skellig.