Study Days

2025

Different Perspectives on Children's Books: Publishing, Illustrating and Archiving

The annual Study Day on 1st November 2025, at the Church Hall of the Crown Court Church of Scotland, Russell Street, London WC2B 5EZ.

The speakers include

Rita Ricketts Only the best is good enough for our children" (Sir Basil Blackwell). An overview of Blackwell's publishing for children

Pam Dix Imagining the past: how illustrators present history in children's information books

Lesley Heming The illustrator Clarke Hutton (1898-1966). Instrumental in the establishment of the highly successful Puffin imprint for Penguin Books)

Martin Impey Creating BLITZ One Family's War: The stories within the story!

Adam Goldwater Seven Stories: The National Collection of Children's Books: an overview including the archives and developments

Cost: £25 per person (includes lunch)

Please send your remittance (cheque or cash) to: Robert Kirkpatrick

Alternatively, payment can be made by bank transfer direct to the Society's bank account:

Name of the account:Children's Books History Society

NatWest plc, Lower Sloane Street Branch

Sort code 60-19-26 Account no: 23712457

Download application form»

Please note: these documents are in PDF format, and may require you to download Adobe Reader in order to view them.

Please note if paying by PayPal please use SarahJWilloughby@aol.com

Past One-day Conferences or Study Days

Most of the papers are printed in the Society's newsletters.

2024

Carnegie: 20th Century Prize Winners

The annual Study Day was held on October, 19th , at the Church Hall of the Crown Court Church of Scotland, Russell Street, London WC2B 5EZ with a live streaming

The speakers included

Peter Hunt Arthur Ransome: Pigeon Post (1936)

Jacqueline Wilson Eve Garnett: The Family From One End Street (1937)

Alan Powers Lucy Boston: A Stranger at Green Knowe (1961)

Jane Badger K.M. Peyton: The Edge of the Cloud (1969)

Nicholas Tucker Philip Pullman: Northern Lights (1995)

2023

Families in Children's Literature (Part 2)

The annual Study Day was held on October, 28th , at the Church Hall of the Crown Court Church of Scotland, Russell Street, London WC2B 5EZ. with a live streaming

The Speakers included

Brian Sibley Tove Jannsson's Family Moomintroll: The family we'd all like to have

Hilary Clare Charlotte Yonge, the first teenage writer for girls **celebrating the bicentenary of the birth of Charlotte Yonge**

Howard Bailes: The Carey Family: an exploration of the novels of Ronald Welch

Sarah Jardine-Willoughby The Gatty Family: Close and Talented

2022

Education and Children's Literature

The annual Study Days held on 22 October, 9.30-4.30, at the Church Hall of the Crown Court Church of Scotland, Russell Street, London WC2B 5EZ. with a live streaming

The Speakers included

Jonathan Cooper Laughing and Grief: The Portrayal of Classics in School Stories

Hilary Clare Real Education in Fictional Girls'Schools

Susan Bailes A Glimpse of Jane Johnson's rare 18th century Nursery Library

Lesley Delaney Eighteenth-century Nursery Reading: Ellenor Fenn's Pioneering Home Learning Scheme

Robert Kirkpatrick Charles Dickens and Dotheboys Hall: Fact or Fiction?

2021

Non-Fiction Children's Books

The Society's annual Study Day was held on 23rd October at the Church Hall of the Crown Court Church of Scotland in Covent Garden, London.

The Speakers included

Sue Walker Creativity and collaboration: Marie Neurath's information books for children

Joe Pearson Puffin Picture Books

Helen Day Through the eyes of a Ladybird

Alan Powers "A House is a House for me": Architecture in children's books

2020

No Study Day Held

2019

Celebration of 50th Anniversary of the Children's Books History Society and and talks on Families in Children's Literature

The Society's annual Study Day was held on 16th November at the Art Worker's Guild, Queen Square London.

The Speakers included

Jane Cooper Happy Families? What does go on in Mrs Molesworth's children's books

Elizabeth Galvin The Extraordinary Life of E. Nesbit

Dr. Jacqueline Wilson Missing Mothers

Celebration of CBHS and tributes to Pat Garrett, co-founder with Brian Alderson

Nicholas Tucker Attempting to protect family values through nursery rhymes

Ann Thwaite The remarkable novels of M.E. Atkinson

2018

Animals in Children's Literature: Writers and Illustrators

The Society's annual Study Day was held on 27th October at the Church Hall of the Crown Court Church of Scotland in Covent Garden, London.

The Speakers included

Annemarie Bilclough A 'seeing eye'- Beatrix Potter's animals

Emma Laws The animals of the 100 Acre Wood

Dr. Victoria de Rijke Animal Metaphor in Children's Literature Illustration

John Ericson The Wind in the Willows REVISITED through its illustrations

Jane Badger 'Get off my foot, Kipper' The Horse and the Pony in Children's fiction

Chris Coles & David Osborne The Animals of 'BB' otherwise known as Denys Watkins Pitchford author of "Little Grey Men".

2017

Nursery Rhymes

The Society's annual Study Day was held on Saturday 28th October 2017 at the Church Hall of the Crown Court Church of Scotland in Covent Garden, London.

The speakers included:

Morag Styles 'Ding Dong Bell': from Shakespeare (Mother Goose's Melody) to contemporary bards, the role of nursery rhymes' in the canon of children's poetry

Elizabeth Hammill 'Over the Hills and Far Away': A Treasury of Nursery Rhymes From Arround the World

Debbie Pullinger Falling down and chopping off the threatening world of nursery rhymes

Anne Harvey & Caroline Walker 'Nursery Rhymes of London Town' by Eleanor Farjeon

Ian Beck Illustrating Nursery Rhymes

Brian Alderson The Opies

2016

The Contemporaries of Peter Rabbit.

The Society's annual Study Day was held on Saturday 22 October 2016 at the Church Hall of the Crown Court Church of Scotland in Covent Garden, London.

The speakers included :-

Andrew Nash The printing and publishing scene round about 1900

Lesley Delaney L.Leslie Brooke 1862 - 1940

Susan Bailes Florence Upton 1873 - 1922

Dennis Butts Kipling in Animal Land

Iain Stevenson The publishing activities of Grant Richards

Anne Stevenson Hobbs ‘Arthur Rackham Arrives’!

2015

Isaac Watts and Early Children's Poetry

The Society's annual Study Day was held on Saturday 17 October 2015, at the Church Hall of the Crown Court Church of Scotland in Covent Garden, London.

The speakers included :

Pat Pinsent Saving young sinners from hell: the children's poetry of John Bunyan and Isaac Watts

Dennis Butts Parables from the Prison and the Asylum: The Children's Verse of Christopher Smart

Anne Harvey Two Sisters & A Friend: Poetry by Ann & Jane Taylor and Adelaide O'Keeffe

Louise Joy Children's poetry and the comic mode

Morag Styles ‘Love me, my baby’ (Rossetti): Some distinctive trends in women writing poetry for children in19thC

Brian Sibley "It is wrong from beginning to end”: Lewis Carroll and the Poetry of Parody

2014

Lesser-known Women Illustrators of the Late Victorian/Early Edwardian Era

October 2014, Crown Court Church of Scotland in conjunction with IBIS (The Imaginative Book Illustration Society).

The speakers included :-

Geoffrey Beare Alice Bolingbroke Woodward

Susan Bailes Kathleen Ainslie

A Grey Hole in History, Children’s Books publishing, at the point “machine-press period” has its beginning, roughly 1830 – 1859

May 2014 St Paul's Girls' School, Brook Green, Hammersmith, London W6 7BS.

The speakers included :-

Brian Alderson A survey of the territory

Sue Walker

A parallel account of the technological changes that affected the business of book publishing

Kate Wright

The emergence of periodical publishing

Jeff Barton

Aspects of "toybooks', including publication, subject matter, and changes during the period

2013

Children's Book Publishing in the Hand-Press Period: Progress in research

11th May 2013 at St Paul's Girls' School, Brook Green, Hammersmith, London W6 7BS

The Speakers included:

Andrea Immel Rewriting the history of children's books illustration: The contribution of the House of Newbery

David Stoker The pitfalls of seeking respectability: the rise and fall and rise again of John Marshall

Jill Shefrin Pasted on Boards, for Hanging up in Nurseries: the Engraver, the Printer and the Juvenile Novelty Market, 1660-1825

Nigel Tattersfield Saint or Sinner?, Thomas Saint of Newcastle. Bookseller, printer and pirate

Matthew Grenby William Godwin's Juvenile Library: 'a talent for the production of books for children" virus "Things as they are"

Brian Alderson, and speakers Summation and "looking ahead"

2012

Two Hundred Years of the Grimm Brothers' Fairy Tales

Crown Court Church of Scotland, Covent Garden, London

2011

The Centenary of The Secret Garden

15th October 2011
Crown Court Church of Scotland, Covent Garden, London

The Speakers included:

Ann Thwaite and Gretchen Gerzina on Frances Hodgson Burnett

Carole Dunbar Freedom, Restriction and Class in the Work in the Work of Frances Hodgson Burnett

Anne Harvey Noel Streatfeild"s The Painted Garden: Film and & TV Versions of the Secret Garden

Dennis Butts The Politics of the Secret Garden

Peter Hunt The Problems of Editing The Secret Garden

2010

Flights of Fantasy: flight in children's literature

Crown Court Church of Scotland, Covent Garden, London

2009

Moveables: paper techniques and their use and development in children's books

Crown Court Church of Scotland, Covent Garden, London

2008

'Beloved Kids'? Children's Writers as Parents:'easily spoiled and easily dehumanised'

20 th September 2008
Crown Court Church of Scotland, Covent Garden, London

The Speakers included:

Peter Hunt on Kenneth Graham

David Rudd on Enid Blyton

Brian Sibley on Rev. Awdry

Ann Thwaite on A.A. Milne

Dennis Butts bringing a conclusion to the day

2007

Scotland and its influence on children's literature

Crown Court Church of Scotland, Covent Garden, London