School story
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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The school story is a fiction genre centering on older pre-adolescent and adolescent school life, at its most popular in the first half of the twentieth century. While examples do exist in other countries, it is most commonly set in English Boarding schools and mostly written in girls and boys sub genres, reflecting the separation of education by gender typical until the 1950s. It focuses largely on friendship, honor and loyalty between pupils and often uses plots involving sports events, bullies and the troubles of new pupils acclimatizing to a new school environment.
The popularity of the traditional school story declined after the second world war, but school stories have remained popular in other forms, with a focus on state run coeducational schools, and themes involving more modern concerns such as racial issues, family life, sexuality and drugs. More recently it has seen a revival with the success of the Harry Potter series, which uses many plot motifs commonly found in the traditional school story.
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See also
Topics
Writers
- Frederic William Farrar
- Frank Richards
- Dorita Fairlie Bruce
- Harold Avery
- Enid Blyton
- Elinor Brent-Dyer
- Antonia Forest, Kingscote School for Girls
- Elsie J. Oxenham - although her main Abbey Series is set as much out of school as in it, many of her other titles are set in schools.
- Anthony Buckeridge (Jennings in a boarding school, Rex Milligan in a grammar school)
- Margaret Biggs
- Josephine Elder
- Clare Mallory
- Geoffrey Trease
Characters and works
- Billy Bunter
- Naughtiest Girl series
- St. Clare's series
- Malory Towers
- Rover Boys
- Chalet School
- Nigel Molesworth
- A.J. Wentworth, B.A. [1] (Comic stories about a hapless prep school master by H. F. Ellis)
- Goodbye, Mr Chips
- Botchan by Natsume Sōseki; this is from the slant of a neophyte teacher
- St. Trinian's School
- Phyllis Matthewman
- Such, Such Were the Joys
- Bruno and Boots
