As a primary school teacher with a particular interest in language and literature who has worked extensively with many of the recently written and highly acclaimed works of fiction for children, I have been struck with the fact that children do not necessarily share adult views about the quality of books. Sometimes children and adults do find common ground for enthusiasm and enjoyment, but often a book that is introduced with delight by the teacher is unaccountably a failure with the children.

I wish to examine two books with which I have had very different experiences with children of around ten years old. The reason I have examined them at all in this way is that I have been intrigued and mystified by the assessment of the works given by children and by adults. The Nightwatchmen I have found impossible to read successfully to a group of children. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory I have never known to fail; indeed, above all books I have read aloud, it has in greatest measure the important quality of holding and exciting a class. Children seem always to be thrilled by it, to groan at each part ending, to be panting for the next instalment, to desire it for themselves, to insert it into their other work consciously or unconsciously and generally to give it wholehearted acclaim. But, like many adults, I feel a rooted dislike for Roald Dahl's book and believe Helen Cresswell's to be of high literary quality.