TOMORROW WILL BE BETTER: THE WRITINGS OF BRITISH COLUMBIA SCHOOL CHILDREN
Edited by Irene Watts.
Volume 11 Number 3.
This collection of meandering and trivial thoughts is presented as a play; apparently, it has been performed. If so, it would seem to consist of a selection of monologues, with practically no exchange of views among the speakers. The children introduce themselves and ramble about family life and school; they tell stories, perform a skit on hiring an ex-con, and so on. The children are not individually delineated; their thoughts are ordinary, and their language vapid. Their meanderings show adult influence, e.g., trite remarks on pollution. Nothing they say indicates any feeling that they are B.C. children. Any fourth grade teacher could produce, from children he or she knows, a more interesting skit. I cannot see the point of this production. If it was to point out to adults that children too have feelings and ideas, there are many books in print that manage the job far better. I can think of Warner Troyer's Divorced Kids* (Clarke Irwin, 1979), which voices many children's feelings or the sprightly and often poetic Dear World: How I'd Put the World Right edited by Richard and Helen Exley (Methuen, 1978), an international collection of creative works by many gifted children. A small and last complaint: the bad grammar (a true-to-life motif, I expect) makes the meaning of several statements unclear, not that it matters terribly much. This one can be safely passed. *Reviewed vol. VIII/1 Winter 1980 p.15.
Susanna Miyake, Faculty of Education, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC. |
1971-1979 | 1980-1985 | 1986-1990 | 1991-1995
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