Nicholas Tucker asks why authors of children's stories about boarding schools chose to concentrate on escapist fantasy, rather than telling the truth Asked by a magazine in 1956 what he considered the chief characteristics of children’s literature, the veteran French writer Marcel Aymé replied ‘La bêtise, le mensonge, l’hypocrisie.’ This…

As young people take to the streets to protest about climate change, Kim Reynolds discusses the way political activism by young people at the Battle of Cable Street has been portrayed in radical children's literature, and urges us to 'heed the truth/Spoken by the youth' What has come to be…

Dennis Broe reports from the Quais du Polar conference in Lyon, and discusses some examples of noir novels which depict and criticise the environmental depredation and social inequalities which lie at the heart of the modern capitalist world Noir fiction is distinguished from simple crime fiction by adding a darker…

Jenny Farrell reviews Liam O’Flaherty’s re-issued novel,“Hollywood Cemetery” Published in London in 1935, but never re-issued until now, “Hollywood Cemetery” is one of five novels by O’Flaherty banned by the Irish State under the Censorship Act. In the 1930s, O’Flaherty was one of Ireland’s most censored authors – in fact,…