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core concern for the British producers (pp. 27–28), and in 1927 ‘legislation was brought in that made it mandatory for British cinemas to screen a certain proportion of British-made films to counter the penetration of North American films’ (p. 28). In fact, the film censors too were concerned about ‘deleterious effects of North American serials on young minds’ (p. 88), which alludes to the differences of taste between British and North American traditions as Jeffery Richards mentions in the editor’s introduction. Hollywood ‘financed 107 out of 200 British films’ during mid to late 1960s (p. 166). These are remarkable statistics and have an interesting story to tell about Britain’s dependence on Hollywood. It is, however, another side of the story that, as Brown succinctly remarks, children’s cinema had an enemy back home: the government, which withdrew financial support to the National Film Finance Cooperation (NFFC), one of the last standing knights in the battle of the survival for children’s cinema. This withdrawal of financial support, Brown argues, resulted in the ‘virtual death’ of Britain’s independent tradition of children’s films. It is in Chapter 4 that Brown truly engages with the subject at hand by initiating a discussion on non-commercial children’s cinema ‘exclusively for children’s matinee audiences’ (p. 80; emphasis in original). As the author demonstrates, J. Arthur Rank was at the foundation of children’s cinema in Britain and was motivated to produce films to instil in children ‘good Christian values and moral principles’ (p. 84). In this regard the role of Children’s Entertainment Films (CEF) and Children’s Film Foundation (CFF) has been iconic. Yet the overarching themes in British children’s films discussed by Brown are ‘national identity’ and ‘patriotic duty’ (pp. 69–73, 111) with other films implicitly or explicitly eulogizing ‘good British values’ while repudiating Americanism and the influence of Hollywood. Despite its shortcomings, British Children’s Cinema is an exhaustive work that covers a great deal of children’s cinema in Britain and its relationship with society. It will be valuable reading for scholars of film history and cultural studies.