Children’s play in very bad times

ABSTRACT

A discussion of children's play in non-playful times and environments.

KEYWORDS:

• children's play
• bad times
• environments
• non-playful times

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Captain Cook Chased a Chook: Children’s Folklore in Australia, Penguin Australia, 1988

2 George Eisen, ‘Coping in Adversity: Children’s Play in the Holocaust’, in Gary Alan Fine (ed), Meaningful Play, Playful Meaning. Since Eisen’s book Children’s Play in the Holocaust was published in 1988 there have been a number of books that include references - extensive or in passing - of children at play in times of major danger and strife. See for example Bridget Daly & Jenny Vaughan, Children at War, Macdonald, London 1988;

Deborah Dwork, Children with a Star: Jewish Youth in Nazi Europe, Yale University Press, New Haven 1991;

George Eisen, Children and Play in the Holocaust, University of Massachusetts, 1990; Jona Oberski, Childhood, 1978, Plume 1984; Nicholas Stargardt, Witnesses of War: Children’s Lives under the Nazis, Pimlico 2006; Hana Volavkova (editor), I Never Saw Another Butterfly, Schocken Books, NY 1993

3 Janusz Korczack, Ghetto Diary, Holocaust Library, NY, 1978, P.121

4 Cited in Deborah Dwork, Children With A Star: Jewish Youth in Nazi Europe, Yale University Press, 1991, p.xxvi

5 Cited in Paul Buddee, The Fate of the Artful Dodger: Parkhurst Boys Transported to Australia and New Zealand 1842–1852, St Geroge Books, Perth, 1984, p.109

6 Rhymes I collected form Australian children over decades; many are also found in the Australian Children’s Folklore Collection, held at Museum Victoria.

7 Two examples from a large collection of Australian children’s play rhymes: Cinderella Dressed in Yella, compiled and edited by Ian Turner, June Factor and Wendy Lowenstein, Heinemann Educational Australia, 1978

8 This doll is one of the objects Dorothy Howard gave me, and which I donated to the Australian Children’s Folklore Collection at Museum Victoria

9 Kornei Chukovsky, From Two to Five, Brisbane, Jacaranda Press, 1963 [1925], p.93

10 Robert Louis Stevenson, ‘A Gossip on Romance’, Longman’s Magazine, Longmans, Green & Co., vol.1 no.1, London 1882

Additional information

Notes on contributors

June Factor

(Dr) June Factor serves as Honorary Senior Fellow, School of Historical and Philosophical Studies, University of Melbourne.