University of Roehampton Favourite Children’s Book Poll

Following the recent BBC Culture Children’s Book poll, we are inviting University of Roehampton staff and students and the wider NCRCL community to vote for their Top 5 children’s books.

BBC Culture Survey Overview

BBC Culture recently conducted a poll to find the ‘greatest children’s books of all time’ and the results were published in May 2023.

Dr Lisa Sainsbury—Associate Professor in the School of Arts Humanities and Social Sciences—was invited to take part in the survey and to nominate her Top 10 children’s books. Although the task is clearly impossible and highly subjective, she couldn’t resist the challenge. You can find out which books she selected here.

One of Dr Sainsbury’s chosen books made the Top 20 and you can see what she has to say about Philip Pullman’s Northern Lights (1995) here.

Roseanna English, a recent BA English Literature graduate and recipient of a University of Roehampton internship this summer, has been working with Dr Sainsbury to promote the MA Children’s Literature (Distance Learning) programme. As part of her role, Rosie read the Top 10 surveyed children’s books and is releasing TikTok videos on each of them to coincide with our upcoming children’s literature conference on 17th November 2023 (details below). Please follow us on TikTok to see what she has to say: https://www.tiktok.com/@roehamptonenglish

University of Roehampton’s Favourite Children’s Books: How to Take Part

In the run up to our 17th November NCRCL conference we are inviting colleagues and students from across the University of Roehampton and the NCRCL to vote for their Top 5 favourite books from the international field of children’s literature. We will announce the results at our conference and will share them online soon after. We will follow the same guidelines as those provided by BBC Culture.

When choosing the children’s books you want to vote for, please follow these guidelines:

• Think about books mostly read by children 12 and under, but you can nominate any book that you think is aimed at children.
• Books of any genre count (including picture books).
• The books might be ones you enjoyed as a child or books you enjoy reading to children – or they can be books you appreciate from a purely artistic point of view.
• We’re counting individual books, not whole series e.g. vote for The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, not the whole Narnia series.
• We want to reflect and celebrate children’s books from every nation and region, so we would like to encourage each voter to consider books from a variety of countries, and in different languages. The only requirement is that they must have been published (not self-published) in at least one country.

Please vote for your favourite children’s books here.

Pat Pinsent Memorial Service and NCRCL Conference: Friday 17th November 2023

At beginning of term, we received sad news of the passing of our friend and colleague, Dr Pat Pinsent—you can read the obituary here.

With the blessing of Pat’s daughter, Frances, we have now confirmed the date of a memorial service. The memorial takes place in the Chapel at Digby Stuart at the University of Roehampton and will be followed by a children’s literature conference in Pat’s memory.

Friday 17th November 2023

1.15 to 2.15 Memorial Service for Pat Pinsent at Digby Stuart Chapel, University of Roehampton.

2.15-2.45 Refreshments

2.45 to 6.00 NCRCL Conference in Memory of Pat Pinsent – in the Chapel and Covent Parlour, Digby Stuart College, University of Roehampton and online

Confirmed papers:

• Alex Bubb: Eastern Classics for English Children: the Qur’an and the Ramayana as School Prize Books
• Kirara Akashi: Edward Gorey’s Neo-Victorian Picturebooks: Unravelling the Dark Humours of Childhood Culture.
• Catherine Archer: “In the first rank of books that influenced my girlhood”: why Charlotte Mary Yonge at 200 still matters.
• Lisa Sainsbury: Troubling Optimism – Eeyore’s Tail and Tokens of Pessimism in Children’s Literature.
• Mark Carter: G is for Gas Mask, Z is for Zeppelin: ABC Books of the First and Second World Wars.
• Ian Kinane: An Ambiguous Ecopoetics? Rereading Enid Blyton’s The Magic Faraway Tree Series in Adulthood.

If you would like to join us for the service or conference, please find booking options at the link below:

Memorial Service and NCRCL Conference in Memory of Dr Pat Pinsent | Roehampton University Online Store