Children's Games in Street and Playground: Chasing, Catching, Seeking v. 1

by IonaOpie (Author), PeterOpie (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  2008

  $5.79

  Perhaps this book should come with a warning to parents: within these pages, children deliberately scare each other, ritually hurt each other, take foolish risks, promote fights, and play ten against one. And yet throughout, they consistently observe their own sense of fair play. 'During the past fifty years, shelf-loads of books have been written instructing children in the games they ought to play -- and some even instructing adults on how to instruct children in the games they ought to play -- but few attempts have been made to record the games children in fact play.' This was Iona and Peter Opie's pertinent observation in 1969, and it was this gap that they sought to fill with their exhaustive survey, through the 1960s, of the games that children 'in fact play' aged roughly between six and twelve years of age, and when outdoors -- and usually out of sight. The Opies weren't interested in formal games and sports supervised by parents or teachers. What excited them were the rough-and-tumble games for which, as one child described, 'nothing is needed but the players themselves.' They were also anxious that, in their meticulous recording of the games, the spirit of the play, the zest, variety and disorderliness, should not be lost. The result was their classic work Children's Games in Street and Playground. To aid a clear and lively presentation of their remarkable study, the original single book has been divided into two. Both volumes record games played in the street, park, playground and wasteland of more than 10,000 children from the Shetland Isles to the Channel Islands, although the majority of the information comes from children living in big cities such as London, Liverpool, Bristol and Glasgow. This first volume focuses on starting a game, and games involving chasing, catching and seeking, and includes favourites such as The Dreaded Lurgi, What's the Time Mr Wolf, Stuck in the Mud, and British Bulldog, as well as around 40 other games. Each game is described in detail and gives the rhymes and saying children repeat while play them, together with the different names under which they are played. Brief historical notes are also included where relevant. The children of the 1960s, the Opies noted, are often thought 'to be incapable of self-organization, and to have become addicted to spectator amusements' to the extent that adults must be relied on to provide play materials, ideas and time to play with them. The same attitudes are still widespread today with our concerns about television and computer games, and the middle-class parental impulse to fill our children's days with organised classes and play dates. 'However much children may need looking after, they are also people going about their own business within their own society.' There are important lessons to be learned from this book about giving children the time and physical space to be themselves with other children.

• Used

  Paperback
  1984

  $3.76

  This record of children's outdoor games played in the street, park, playground, or wasteland is drawn from the contributions of 10,000 children in England, Scotland and Wales. It reveals that the games children take pleasure in when out on their own are usually those learnt from each other - not from adults. They are games in which children may deliberately scare each other, ritually hurt each other, take foolish risks, play ten against one, and yet in which they consistenly observe their own sense of fair play. This volume explains in detail how a large number of street games are played, and gives the rhymes and sayings children repeat while playing them, together with their different regional names. It also contains notes on their individual histories, and compares apparently recently invented games with amusements in Elizabethan, medieval and even classical times, while numerous analogues from other countries indicate the extent of their distribution. Iona and Peter Opie have also written The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes , The Oxford Nursery Rhyme Book , The Oxford Book of Children's Verse , The Lore and Language of Schoolchildren , Classic Fairy Tales , A Nursery Companion and The Oxford Book of Narrative Verse . Iona Opie is also the author of The Singing Game and People in the Playground .