Why Was Billy Bunter Never Really Expelled? : and another Twenty-Five Mysteries of Children's Literature

A new collection of essays exploring the questions raised by children's fiction, from textual puzzles to historical and cultural conundrums.

After the success of How Did Long John Silver Lose His Leg?, Dennis Butts and Peter Hunt take their forensic lenses to more mysteries that have troubled readers of children''s books over the centuries. Their questions range from the historical to the philosophical, some of which are puzzling, some of which are controversial:- Why does it seem there are no Nursery Rhymes before 1744?- Why did God start to die in children''s books long before Nietzsche noticed it?- Why are the schoolgirls at Enid Blyton''s St Clare''s so horrible?- Why are there so many dead parents littering children''s books?- Why does C.S. Lewis annoy so many people?The book also explains why an elephant captures Adolph Hitler, who was Biggles''s great love, and whose side G.A. Henty was on in the American civil war, and delivers a plethora of erudite, entertaining answers to questions that you may not have thought of asking. And notably, of course, it reveals why William George Bunter, the Fat Owl of the Remove, was never permanently removed from Greyfriars School.