Overview

Concluding a trilogy of books on children's games, this is a comprehensive study of the nature of children's play. Following ""Children's Games in Street and Playground"" (1969), and ""The Singing Game"" (1985), and based on the surveys of the 1950s to 1970s, the present volume deals with children's games that use equipment of one kind or another, such as marbles, fivestones, skipping and ball-bouncing, and describes in fascinating detail the objects used, the rules of play, the accompanying rhymes and chants, and the history of the games from their earliest appearance. In this volume it has been possible to put traditional games into a wider social context, to show that many of them were once adult amusements, and to trace the varying attitudes towards them over the past 300 years, from pedagogical disapproval, to legal suppression, to the sentimental nostalgia of the present day. Related topics such as ""do games come in seasons?"", and ""are the games really disappearing?"" are also covered. Games have a rich language of their own. Marbles terms (bosser, cannons, fulking, kell, smugs), the names and rules of fivestones (chucks, dandies, gobs, ducks in the pond and flydob scatsie), the surreal verses chanted by the girls, about a lady on a mountain, or a Little Fatty Doctor whose wife can't eat fish, are all part of a world of play into which children can escape. ""Children's Games with Things"" is an evocation of that world, and a reminder of the need for children to play their own games under their own jurisdiction. This book is intended for general readers interested in history of children's games, social historians, sociologists, teachers, educationalists, folklorists, and parents.

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9780192159632

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Reviews

The final volume of three in which the Opies have studied children's games and this one examines games played with balls, skipping ropes, tops and whips, knicklebones and marbles, or in the case of hopscotch, a hard surface. The origins of the games (some of which go back to Egyptian times and are illustrated here from a vase in the British Museum) are meticulously and entertainingly presented. So too are the places, rhymes and names associated with them, which are immensely varied, especially in skipping and ball-bouncing. Games had their seasons: shuttlecocks came out on Shrove Tuesday; marbles in all their many forms were traditionally played only in Lent. This book is a mine of information which will really jog memories. Our understanding of the history and nature of childhood has been immensely enriched by the Opies' work. (Kirkus UK)

Author Information

Iona Opie is a leading authority on children at play. With her late husband Peter, she has compiled such renowned collections as The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes, Classic Fairy Tales, and The Oxford Book of Children's Verse. She lives in Great Britain

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