ABSTRACT
‘A lot of discussion about children's literature’, the author Nina Bawden observed, ‘suffers from pompous inflation’ (Bawden 1987:68), but on the whole children's authors display a down-to-earth concern with the complex situation in which they find themselves. They are commonly reluctant to theorise: Lucy Boston expressed the extreme view: ‘I'm against all theoreticians. No original writing could result from a theory, could it?’ (Wintle and Fisher 1974:284). Joan Aiken is a little more tolerant:
