This record of children's outdoor games played in the street, park, playground, or wasteland is drawn from the contributions of 10,000 children in England, Scotland and Wales. It reveals that the games children take pleasure in when out on their own are usually those learnt from each other - not from adults. They are games in which children may deliberately scare each other, ritually hurt each other, take foolish risks, play ten against one, and yet in which they consistenly observe their own sense of fair play. This volume explains in detail how a large number of street games are played, and gives the rhymes and sayings children repeat while playing them, together with their different regional names. It also contains notes on their individual histories, and compares apparently recently invented games with amusements in Elizabethan, medieval and even classical times, while numerous analogues from other countries indicate the extent of their distribution.
Iona and Peter Opie have also written "The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes", "The Oxford Nursery Rhyme Book", "The Oxford Book of Children's Verse", "The Lore and Language of Schoolchildren", "Classic Fairy Tales", "A Nursery Companion" and "The Oxford Book of Narrative Verse". Iona Opie is also the author of "The Singing Game" and "People in the Playground".
- ISBN10 0192814893
- ISBN13 9780192814890
- Publish Date 1 October 1984
- Publish Status Active
- Out of Print 4 December 2000
- Publish Country GB
- Publisher Oxford University Press
- Imprint Oxford Paperbacks
- Edition New edition
- Format Paperback (B-Format (198x129 mm))
- Pages 400
- Language English