“as natural as oak growing”: Child Voices, Agency, and Empire in Rudyard Kipling’s Puck of Pook’s Hill

Published in 1906, Rudyard Kipling’s Puck of Pook’s Hill and E. Nesbit’s The Story of the Amulet both imagine their child characters interacting with imperial history through fantastical means. This article reads these portraits of empires past within the larger context of changes in education and legislation that resulted in a large emphasis on history education in the British elementary classroom. By attending to the ways these novels imagine and integrate the child voice, I argue that fantasy provides a means to eschew linking historical narratives and heavy-handed didacticism. Instead, both books suggest that narratives of history can and should be questioned by their child readers.