We would like to encourage you to do some dabbling over the summer – to explore areas you may not get a chance to visit once you are in the thick of your studies and to discover interests you didn’t know you had. This list is just a starting point to suggest some of the books which we have found particularly stimulating or challenging in shaping the ways we think about childhood.
If you have come across other books which have made a big impact on the way you think and feel about children and childhood please do let us know and we will add them for future years.
Essential Reading
Parker-Rees, Rod., Leeson, C., Willan, J. and Savage, J. (2010) (eds) – Early Childhood
Studies: an introduction to the study of children’s worlds and children’s lives,3 rd edition, Exeter:
Learning Matters.
Moore, S., Neville, C., Murphy, M. and Connoll, C. (2010) The ultimate study skills handbook,
London, Open University Press
Good to dip into
Michael Rosen (ed) – The Penguin Book of Childhood
Kate Figes
– Childhood
Michael Donaghy – 101 Poems about Childhood
Hugh Cunningham (2006) The Invention of Childhood
Fiction (just a very few ideas to get you going)
Jane Austen –Sense and Sensibility (and/or Mansfield Park, Northanger Abbey)
Louisa May Alcott
– Little Women
Frances Hodgson Burnett
– The Secret Garden
Henry James – The Turn of the Screw
Charles Dickens
– Hard Times (or Oliver Twist)
Jacqueline Wilson – Tracey Beaker
Philip Pullman – His Dark Materials (trilogy)
Charlotte Bronte – Jane Eyre
Mark Haddon - The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time
Yann Martel – Life of Pi
Peter Hoeg – Borderliners
Roddy Doyle- Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha!
William Woodruff- The Road to Nab End
Autobiography
Roald Dahl – Boy
Frank McCourt – Angela’s Ashes
David Peltzer – A Boy Called ‘It’
Lorna Sage
– Bad Blood
Angela Ashworth – Once in a House on Fire
Maya Angelou – I Know why the Caged Bird Sings
Anton Makarenko
– The Road to Life
Challenging Perspectives on Childhood
Virginia Axline
– Dibs: in Search of Self
Jean Liedloff
– The Continuum Concept
Ivan Illich – Deschooling Society (or Celebration of Awareness)
Paolo Freire – Pedagogy of the Oppressed
Herbert Kohl
– 36 children
John Holt – How Children Fail (or any other title)
John Berger – Ways of Seeing
Bruno Bettelheim
– The Uses of Enchantment

Margaret Humphreys
– Empty Cradles
A.S Neill- Summerhill
Understanding Children
Vivian Gussin Paley – A Child’s Work (or Wally’s Stories, In Mrs Tully’s Room or any title)
Jerome Bruner
– The Culture of Education
Margaret Donaldson – Children’s minds
Smith Cowie and Blades – Understanding Children’s Development (5 th Edition)
Susan Engel
– Real Kids
Alison Clark and Peter Moss - Listening to Young Children
William Corsaro – The Sociology of Childhood (Second Edition)
Denise Lacher, Todd Nichols and Joanne May -Connecting with Kids through Stories
The following suggestions are more specific to the autumn term core modules for each stage
(also note that these are set out as we will expect you to set out your references, with details of date and place of publication and of publisher).
For those about to join Year 1
Arnold, C. (2003) Observing Harry: child development and learning 2-5, Buckingham: Open
University Press.
Jenkinson, S. (2001) The Genius of Play: celebrating the spirit of childhood Stroud: Hawthorne,
Paley, Vivian Gussin (2004) A Child's Work: the importance of fantasy play . Chicago: The
University of Chicago Press.
Rodd J (2005) Leadership in Early Childhood. Maidenhead; Open University Press
Smith, P. K. (2010) Children and Play.
Chichester: Wiley Blackwell
For those about to join Year 2
Gopnik, A., Meltzoff, A. and Kuhl, P. (1999) How Babies Think : the Science of Childhood
London : Weidenfeld & Nicolson.
Reddy, V (2008) How infants know minds. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press
Schaffer, H.R. (1996): Social Development , Oxford: Blackwell.
For those about to join Year 3
Gittens, D. (1998) The Child in Question , Basingstoke: Macmillan Press.
James, A. and Christensen, P. (2000) Research with Children: Perspectives and Practices ,
London: Falmer Press.
James, A. and Prout, A. (Eds.) (1997) Constructing and Reconstructing Childhood London:
Falmer Press
Lewis, V, Kellett, M, Robinson, C, Fraser, S and Ding, S (Eds.) (2004) The Reality of Research with Children and Young People London: Paul Chapman Publishing.
Morrison, H. (Ed.) (2012) The Global History of Childhood Reader, London; Routledge,
Mukherji, P. and Albon, D. (2010) Research Methods in Early Childhood , London, Sage
Roberts- Holmes G (2005) Doing Your Early Years Research Project: A Step by Step Guide ,
London: Paul Chapman Publishing
Only available from libraries
– for reference only
Parker-Rees, R and Willan, J (Eds.) (2006) – Early Years Education: major themes in education, Vols 1-4 , Abingdon : Routledge
Barker, R. (2009) Making Sense of Every Child Matters, Bristol: Policy Press