Recess Battles: Playing, Fighting and Storytelling

Recess Battles: Playing, Fighting and Storytelling. By Anna R. Beresin. (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2010. Pp. xii + 168, foreword, illustrations, notes, bibliography, index. $50.00 cloth, $30.00 paper.)Anna R. Beresin's ethnographic study of children's culture in a racially diverse public school in Philadelphia makes an important contribution to children's folklore studies. In the aftermath of school shootings and other troubling incidents, educators have debated the causes of violence instigated by children and adolescents. In order to prevent violence, should educators curtail recess and supervise children closely? Beresin 's book passionately defends children's need for free play and eloquendy demonstrates the intricacy of play that emerges during recess in a typical American schoolyard. By letting children speak for themselves through stories, games, and drawings, she makes a persuasive case for retention of recess and recognition of children's own play patterns. Her book would be an excellent addition to the syllabus of an introductory or children's folklore course.Having studied with Brian Sutton-Smith, the author of her book's foreword, Beresin is well versed in children's play tiieory and fieldwork mediods. She explains that she used two video cameras: one in a second-floor window of the Mill School in Philadelphia and the other in the school yard. This dual perspective made it possible to situate close observations of individual children in a broader perspective. Her fieldwork with tiiird-, fourth-, fifth-, and sixth-grade students took place in 1991, 1999, and 2004. Known to children at the Mill School as the "recess lady," she spent many hours in the schoolyard, observing games and listening to stories.One of the most appealing aspects of Recess Battles is its child-centeredness. The author explains, "All of the ideas in this book were initiated by conversations with the children" (5). Looking like a textbook for kids with a starkly plain black, white, red and grey cover, the book presents black and white drawings by children at the Mill School. Written in a lucid, engaging style, it is accessible for non-specialist readers but valuable for folklorists and academics in other fields. Endnotes convey all the information that academics need without interrupting the flow of ideas and information.Recess Battles has three parts: "Playin' and Fightin'," "The Push and Pull of Adult Culture," and "Play and Children's Culture." In the first section, Beresin asks whether recess actually causes problems. When one looks at the sequence of incidents that take place throughout recess at the Mill School, it becomes clear that most incidents occur around the time that the bell rings to call children back into the school building. A detailed chart followed by analysis shows that what many people have called a "recess problem" is actually a transition problem (23-24). This section also includes a chapter on storytelling, which serves as "a form of cultural commentary about growing up scared and confused in a violent environment" (32) . …