Jim Starling

Jim Starling is the central character of a series of seven books for young people written by Edmund Wallace Hildick.[1] Each book in the series details an episode in the lives of four close friends, Jim, Terry, Nip and Goggles, who call themselves the Last Apple Gang. They are all pupils at a boy's secondary modern school in the town of "Smogbury" in the north of England: for example, going down to London to watch Burnley FC in the 1962 FA Cup Final.[2]

In order of publication, the books are

None of the books have been published since 1971.[3]

Assessment

During the time that they were readily available to young readers (in the children's section of the nation's public libraries)) opinion was sharply divided on the series' merit: some praised them for their social realism, [4] but others believed they stereotyped working-class childhood.[5]

References

  1. ^ Costumes of English Literary Characters: Jim Starling
  2. ^ Jim Starling Series
  3. ^ Amazon UK
  4. ^ Townsend, J. R: Written for Children (Harmondsworth), Kestrel Books, (1974). p 368. ISBN 0 7226 5466 9
  5. ^ Dixon, Bob: Catching them Young: Sex, Race and Class in Children's Fiction, London, Pluto Press (1977) p 91. ISBN 0 904383 50 4

External links