Naughty Children by Christianna Brand

Naughty Children

An Anthology

Compiled by Christianna Brand

Illustrated by Edward Ardizzone

Victor Gollancz, 1973, ISBN 0575008660, black and white illustrations in text, hardcover, dustjacket

Very Good Condition, some edge and shelf wear, some rubbing and bumping to edges and corners, ex-library with tape residue to covers, labels attached to inside front and rear endpapers, tape age markings to introductory pages, dustjacket shows some edge and shelf wear with some rubbing, bumping, chipping, creasing and tears to edges and corners, sticker to spine (see photographs)

“Naughty Children is a downright book about downright naughty children, who are naughty from a childish point of view; it is not ‘clever’ or ‘comic’ or ‘nostalgic’ for the benefit of grown-ups.  It has been designed for boys and girls, between the ages of seven or eight and, say, fifteen; and every entry has been tried on a carefully selected, reasonably naughty, child, and if it failed to entertain, rejected out of hand
As to actual content, Edwardian and Victorian children do seem to have excelled in naughtiness and no apology is made for including so many of them here: Katy in What Katy Did, swinging on the forbidden swing; Eric choking with laughter in church over the release of the grasshopper on to the bonnet of the lady in the pew in front; Tom Sawyer, Topsy, the absolutely ineffable Lady Noggs Peeress, and many other old favourites.  There are extracts form Dickens, George Eliot, Thackeray, O. Henry (with The Ransom of Red Chief); and there is Pet Marjorie declaring that ‘the most devilish thing is 8 times 8 and 7 times 7 is what nature itself can’t endure.’
Nearer the present day are William, Biggles, and anecdotes of Prince Phillip, Churchill, Dylan Thomas and Schiaparelli who thought herself so hideous that she plastered her face with mud and tried to grow flowers on it.”