Anthropology of a world like ours (but not quite)

books:


	• The Lore and Language of Schoolchildren (New York Review Books Classics) Iona Opie, Peter Opie NYRB Classics, 2001 - 488 pages average customer review:based on 2 reviews view larger image
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Rhymes and reasons

Most of the material for this book was gathered fifty years ago in British schools, but I'm sure readers in all countries, for all time, will find it amusing and revealing. When I'd finished it, I felt I had a greater insight into children's minds and concerns, which they express, of course, in the games they play and the rhymes they say. I felt at the same time great respect for children. For unasked and unobserved, they have been keeping our traditions alive for us. Many of their dictums and ditties have changed little for hundreds of years. It seems that all the Barbies and Action Men and other expensive toys can't distract them from this valuable and enjoyable task of conservation.

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Anthropology of a world like ours (but not quite)

Collected in the 50s, the Opies' LORE AND LANGUAGE OF SCHOOLCHILDREN is a compelling compendium of a world very similar to that of the 21st century but not quite. Americans will be particularly fascinated by the slight differences in customs and games among children across the Atlantic, as the Opies catalogue nicknames, rhymes, games, tricks, and half-believed superstitions and spells. fascinating reading.

First published in 1959, Iona and Peter Opie's The Lore and Language of Schoolchildren is a pathbreaking work of scholarship that is also a splendid and enduring work of literature. Going outside the nursery, with its assortment of parent-approved entertainments, to observe and investigate the day-to-day creative intelligence and activities of children, the Opies bring to life the rites and rhymes, jokes and jeers, laws, games, and secret spells of what has been called "the greatest of savage tribes, and the only one which shows no signs of dying out."

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