Left Out: The Forgotten Tradition of Radical Publishing for Children in Britain 1910–1949 by Kimberley Reynolds (review)

In Left Out Kimberley Reynolds calls for a reassessment of the role of radical children's publishing in the first half of the twentieth century. She asserts that publications produced by radical writers, illustrators, and publishers have largely been ignored in histories of children's literature, and that the period covered in this work, particularly the interwar period and the period after the Second World War until the 1950s, has been perceived as fallow regarding innovative children's books. Her aim is to redress this situation, to examine what was on offer, where it came from, and to assess its contribution to the field of children's publishing.

Reynolds provides definitions of what makes a radical text, referring to their propensity to look toward the future and to treat the child reader as part of the adult world, instead of existing in a separate environment as often occurs in mainstream children's publishing. She argues that radical children's literature was the product of three areas of life in Britain: left-wing politics, modernism, and progressive education. The radical creator was expected to provide works to assist children in becoming rational and capable adults, ready to change society and work toward a more progressive and equal future for all. One of the most valuable elements of the book is the elucidation of the links among the creators of these works, and Reynolds provides a useful chart that demonstrates connections between various radical and progressive individuals and organizations. She also posits that radical works for children were not necessarily politically radical, or at least not solely political, and clearly explains the concept of radical aesthetics. Handling a large number of texts, her chapters cover scientific books, antiwar publications, avant-garde and modernist books, and representations of the Soviet Union.

The book provides a good historical overview of the first radical publications emanating from organizations such as the Socialist Sunday Schools before the First World War. It continues with a description of the work of two radical publishers, the more mainstream Gollancz, the instigator of the Left Book Club, and the less well-known but influential Martin Lawrence, later Lawrence and Wishart. Martin Lawrence was closely allied with the Communist Party of Great Britain but had a major influence on British children's literature, being the first publisher of the influential historical children's novelist Geoffrey Trease. They were also responsible for the English translation of Eddie and the Gipsy by Alex Wedding (1935), which contained photographs by John Heartfield, also referenced by Reynolds.

Reynolds provides masterly close analyses of several of the texts that she discusses, including War in Dollyland by Harry Golding and Albert Friend (1915) in her antiwar section. She allows the reader to engage with the text itself, assisted by the reproduction of some of the book's illustrations. The realistic and strangely terrifying images of dolls as soldiers, including a depiction of a military execution, are as Reynolds says, "far beyond the experiences and understandings of most children" (45), but they succeed in linking the ideas of children, toys, and play. As she points out, in its utter condemnation of war at a time when militarization was being embraced, this was a radical text.

Her expert analysis of aesthetic radicalism is one of the high points of the work. She looks at avant-garde and modernist books in Britain and notes that there was a range of such texts for children including surrealist tales and those written in a stream of consciousness. She continues her close reading of texts with Come In by Olive Dehn (1947), which appears in her section on rebuilding Britain, pulling back its layers to expose its heartfelt cry against the boredom of suburbia, a life that on the surface it extolls. Again, the reproductions from the original text clarify the arguments put forward. These close readings of various texts cited in the book are, without exception, superb...