ABSTRACT
Many of those who read children’s books in general and girls’ school stories in particular have to overcome a certain embarrassment when making public confession of their weakness. When one consults the gentleman in charge of the shop, one is informed, with magisterial authority, that, whereas there is a market for boys’ books, no one collects girls’ school stories; there is simply no call for them. One might assume that all this enthusiasm and activity would imply cultural and academic respectability. Elizabeth Bowen, commissioned to write an introduction to the 1957 reissue of Antonia White’s Frost in May , lays it down that ‘[school stories] for boys are infinitely better than those for girls. The critics who thus tear the school story to shreds have a very clear idea of what they mean by ‘school stories’. Most readers of these books are equally clear.
