Posted by Terence McManus on February 01, 1999 at 01:21:11:
In Reply to: Re: Which Children's authors did Ransome influence? posted by Anne LeVeque on January 29, 1999 at 17:23:45:
The structure of two boys and two girls (often boy, girl, girl, boy in order of age) seems to pretty common in childrens' stories. This is found in many of E. Nesbit's books - sometimes with a fifth much younger sibling. Earlier still I seem to remember that there were four children in the Children of the New Forest.
In the other sailing series we discussed in an earlier thread two girls and two boys ( although not always siblings) also appears to be the preferred size for the "core group". Does anyone have any ideas as to why this should be so?