The book is in good conditions apart from the foxing on the first few pages plus it does continue into the book but not too bad not sure what year the book was published as it does not have a date in it and also if anyone is interested in buying it message me
It probably dates from somewhere just before 1954. As far as I know it was not a classic of children's literature, and being in indifferent condition with no dust jacket I doubt if it has any value other than curiosity. It appears to be of the genre 'school story' which was always about life and minor shenanegans in a single sex public boarding school (a private fee paying school for American readers) boys read boy's school stories, I assume the girls read girls school stories. If it was a Sunday School prize I imagine it was considered to be of a morally uplifting nature, which may have made it a very dull read. It is odd how popular the genre was with the 10 to 14 age group despite the fact that only a very tiny proportion of them could actually attend such a school. There was of course the scholarship boy/girl theme where a lower middle class protagenist from a run of the mill non rich background would eventually shine despite being 'trade' (a different meaning then) and become Captain of Cricket or even Senior Prefect. For those too young to know, a prefect was a pupil policeman, with the power of corporal punishment, either with a cane or a slipper, appllied either to the clothed or bare bottom of the miscreant, according to taste.
Not scarce and available in the UK in a number of editions. https://www.abebooks.co.uk/servlet/...ded=all&sortby=17&sts=t&tn=The+Senior+Prefect Debora
I liked this snippet from one description of the contents. with Black and white frontis of school boys at sport. "He flung him forcibly to the ground" We had to make our own entertainment in those days........
I could write some recollections of prefects, both senior and minor, but once again, I am stymied by the censors...................what sort of a reaction would I get with a title such as "Fagging at Choate"?
We had "prefects" at my school in England, King Ethelberts Senior Secondary in Birchington Kent, I see now that it is a Private school .. but not 60 yrs ago when I attended. The Prefects were always chosen from the wealthier families, no matter what attributes one had to offer, as were the cast for the yearly school play .. one could never aspire to become a prefect if you were from a poorer family, my poetry, drawings and short stories were regularly featured in the school Year Book, but a prefect? Never !! I hated that system .. I did well as an adult though, poorer family didn't matter then , Joy.
