Posted by Mike Dennis on October 26, 2014 at 01:38:00 user MTD.
In Reply to: Re: Childish behaviour posted by Roger Wardale on October 25, 2014 at 09:39:37:
This may not be the right place in the thread, so apologies to Roger if it seems disconnected from what he had to say.
Yes, in the biographies and the personal accounts of those that met AR he does seem to have enjoyed the company of children but on his terms (then what adult doesn't?)
But the characters do develop and mature, from recent readings of the books and much of the background material I was somewhat surprised that the books were not written in the same timeline as they were published (why I'm surprised I'm not entirely sure!) But does this not explain why the characters do not develop 'smoothly' - a good example is Nancy in SW where she seems to regress unlike almost all the Swallows.
One of the joys of AR's books is the characters are almost real, too many in children's fiction are so removed from reality it makes it much harder to identify with them (and here I comment from my reading as a child, whether it holds for today's children I don't know!)