About this ebook
Bel Mooney has taken twelve children from different parts of the British Isles and observed them over a year as they play, learn and grow. She saw Denise being born, watched Gemma, the daughter of a company executive, at her nursery school and heard the fears of the parents of Donald, a West Indian child from Birmingham. She saw David in preparatory school and Melanie in her comprehensive; talked to a fourteen-year-old Asian boy about his experience of race, and to a ten-year-old Welsh boy about family violence.
The twelve chapters in The Year of the Child mirror the stages in a child's development from total dependence to independence and self-awareness and the beginnings of a critical attitude to the world around – a world in which he or she, whatever the social background, has had very little personal choice. The Year of the Child makes a valuable contribution to social history, describing six boys and six girls from different parts of the British Isles and from three broad social groups; it goes beyond journalism and social comment to become a re-enactment of what the author calls 'that cyclical loss of innocence which is at the root of human experience'.
The twelve chapters in The Year of the Child mirror the stages in a child's development from total dependence to independence and self-awareness and the beginnings of a critical attitude to the world around – a world in which he or she, whatever the social background, has had very little personal choice. The Year of the Child makes a valuable contribution to social history, describing six boys and six girls from different parts of the British Isles and from three broad social groups; it goes beyond journalism and social comment to become a re-enactment of what the author calls 'that cyclical loss of innocence which is at the root of human experience'.
About the author
Bel Mooney (born 1946) is an English journalist and broadcaster. She was born in Liverpool, and spent her earliest years on a council estate; in 1969 Mooney became a journalist, and later went on to write for the New Statesman, the Daily Telegraph Magazine, Cosmopolitan and many others. She was also a columnist on the Daily Mirror, The Times and The Sunday Times.
Having made her name as a journalist, columnist, and broadcaster, Mooney turned her hand to writing fiction for adults and children. She has published 26 books for children and young people, and her fiction (adults and children) has been translated into eleven languages. Her children's novel The Voices of Silence won a New York Public Library citation and was shortlisted for a Gold Medal in the State of California.
Mooney holds honorary degrees from the University of Bath and Liverpool John Moores University, and is a Fellow of University College London. She has reviewed fiction and non-fiction for many newspapers including the Spectator, the Observer, The Times and the Times Literary Supplement. She has also been a judge for the Whitbread (now Costa) Book of the Year and The Orange Prize.
Having made her name as a journalist, columnist, and broadcaster, Mooney turned her hand to writing fiction for adults and children. She has published 26 books for children and young people, and her fiction (adults and children) has been translated into eleven languages. Her children's novel The Voices of Silence won a New York Public Library citation and was shortlisted for a Gold Medal in the State of California.
Mooney holds honorary degrees from the University of Bath and Liverpool John Moores University, and is a Fellow of University College London. She has reviewed fiction and non-fiction for many newspapers including the Spectator, the Observer, The Times and the Times Literary Supplement. She has also been a judge for the Whitbread (now Costa) Book of the Year and The Orange Prize.
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