FLICKERBOOK AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. This item is unavailable.FLICKERBOOK AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

Introduced by Ruth Fainlight and with an afterword by Hilary Mantel, Flickerbook is the classic autobiography of the writer Leila Berg (1917–2012), who fought all  her life ‘fiercely and often provocatively for the right of children to be listened to, understood and accepted’ (TES). It recreates childhood pleasures and fears, relationships with family and lovers, and growing political engagement. It ends with an air-raid siren in September 1939: ‘Something new is beginning, and we fumble because we don’t know what it is.’

Leila Berg (1917–2012) grew up in a Jewish immigrant neighbourhood in Salford, Greater Manchester. Flickerbook records her childhood and early youth. In the late 1960s she devised, wrote for and edited the Nippers series of early readers, pioneering the inclusion of working-class and ethnic-minority experience and language in books for children. Her books about childhood and progressive education include Risinghill: Death of a Comprehensive, Reading and Loving and Look at Kids!