A PICTURE HISTORY OF BRITAIN by Clarke Hutton

Age 6+ Oxford

Children’s Books is celebrating its centenary by reissuing a book that was first published in 1945, which will please anyone who misses history as it used to be taught. This volume’s particular charm is its copious four-colour illustrations, now quaintly beautiful, which imitate the art of the period described, so that the pictures echo, for instance, the Bayeux tapestry, medieval manuscripts, Holbein portraits or social realism (Hutton taught at the Central School of Art from 1930 to 1968). The narrative relates landmarks of British history from the Stone Age to the end of the second world war with traditional priorities, simple clarity and a few debatable judgments (early colour films are described as “silent and not very good”). Meanwhile, the text protects children from the unsavoury or horrific by calling Nell Gwynn Charles II’s “great friend”, by omitting to mention Mrs Simpson when discussing Edward VIII’s abdication, and by talking about the Nazis’ “special hate” for the Jews, without making any reference to the death camps. It is a reminder of a time when youngsters were more innocent but were still expected to know what happened when.

(OUP £9.99)

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