From conkers to marbles, from British Bulldog to tag, not forgetting 'one potato, two potato' and 'eeny, meeny, miny, mo', The Lore of the Playground looks at the games children have enjoyed, the rhymes they have chanted and the rituals and traditions they have observed over the past hundred years and more. Each generation, it emerges, has had its own favourites - hoops and tops in the 1930s, clapping games more recently. Some pastimes, such as skipping, have proved remarkably resilient, their complicated rules carefully handed down from one class to the next. Many are now the stuff of distant memory. And some traditions have proved to be strongly regional, loved by children in one part of the country, unknown to those elsewhere. All are brilliantly and meticulously recorded by Steve Roud, who has drawn on interviews with hundreds of people aged from 8 to 80 to create a fascinating picture of all our childhoods.

Jerry, Nancy, and Gail seek answers for the mysterious injuries occurring on Dr. Fell's new neighborhood playground that seem to heal as if by magic.

First published in 1959, Iona and Peter Opie's The Lore and Language of Schoolchildren is a pathbreaking work of scholarship that is also a splendid and enduring work of literature. Going outside the nursery, with its assortment of parent-approved entertainments, to observe and investigate the day-to-day creative intelligence and activities of children, the Opies bring to life the rites and rhymes, jokes and jeers, laws, games, and secret spells of what has been called "the greatest of savage tribes, and the only one which shows no signs of dying out."

An account of the games which children between the ages of six and twelve invent or perform out-of-doors for their own enjoyment

The result of the author's field studies over two years in a school playground, this book records conversations and events, illustrating the games and jokes beloved by children.

Do you look back on your school days, and remember magical times, powerful and enduring friendships, and secret adventures? Well, snap out of it. You're deluding yourself. Based on the popular website playgroundlaw.com The Law of the Playground is a dictionary of the insults, games, torture, legendary anecdotes and pure creative insanity that we all - as pre-moral children -inflicted on each other. Whilst the emphasis is always on humor, the book acknowledges that children can be bastards, and begrudgingly accepts that it's, actually, very amusing. Written with dark nostalgia, and more wit and substance than average, everyone can find something they will identify with in The Law of the Playground. A timely antidote to the rose-tinted view of childhood offered by FriendsReunited.co.uk and SchoolDisco.com.

Drawing on ethnographic accounts of children's media-referenced play, this book explores children's engagement with media cultures and playground experiences, analyzing a range of issues such as learning, fantasy, communication and identity.

Meet the second book of The Able Fables®, a heartwarming story of a young lion who adores gymnastics. When Lia struggles to master a new skill on the balance beam, she doubts her abilities and ponders quitting the sport altogether. Encouraged by her teammates, Lia harnesses the power of a kind mind and learns to embrace the balance beam as she does her birthmark.

The aim of this book is to offer an informed account of changes in the nature of the relationship between play, media and commercial culture in England through an analysis of play in the 1950s/60s and the present day.

Rulers of Literary Playgrounds: Politics of Intergenerational Play in Children’s Literature offers multifaceted reflection on interdependences between children and adults as they engage in play in literary texts and in real life. This volume brings together international children’s literature scholars who each look at children’s texts as key vehicles of intergenerational play reflecting ideologies of childhood and as objects with which children and adults interact physically, emotionally, and cognitively. Each chapter applies a distinct theoretical approach to selected children’s texts, including individual and social play, constructive play, or play deprivation. This collection of essays constitutes a timely voice in the current discussion about the importance of children’s play and adults’ contribution to it vis-à-vis the increasing limitations of opportunities for children’s playful time in contemporary societies.