A History of Childhood in 100 Objects

Some things never change: families in ancient Egypt still gathered round boardgames, and the yoyo was a plaything of boys and girls even in the Tudor period. Then there are the objects that could only belong to a certain time and place – toys and everyday items that take us back to our childhood, or help us imagine what life was like for our parents and grandparents when they were little. In A HISTORY OF CHILDHOOD IN 100 OBJECTS, Maggie Andrews and Janis Lomas reveal, mosaic-like, the changing face of childhood. A seventeenth-century rocking horse speaks to a time when boys were trained to be soldiers, while Victorian factory shoes testify to a miserly age of child labour and an evacuee label to childhood in the shadow of war. After Mr Potato Head, the first toy sold on television, came the toy crazes that characterise our modern age of consumerism, from troll dolls to fidget spinners. Together these short, immersive chapters on a wealth of objects tell the fascinating story of our shifting ideas about childhood and its meaning in our lives.