‘A Great Ghastly Mistake’?: Approaches to Teenage Pregnancy in K. M. Peyton’s Pennington’s Heir and Berlie Doherty’s Dear Nobody

Nearly two decades separate the publication of K. M. Peyton’s Pennington’s Heir (1973) and Berlie Doherty’s Dear Nobody (1991), both of which focus on the theme of teenage pregnancy. Dear Nobody won the Carnegie Medal, was shortlisted for four other book awards, and was adapted into a BBC television production and an award-winning play. By contrast, Peyton’s Pennington novels are criticised for being ‘often stereotypical in the depiction of character’ (Knowles and Malmkjaer 1996, p.142). In this paper I argue that it is Dear Nobody that is at times conservative and regressive in its treatment of its central theme, while the earlier and less well received Pennington’s Heir is the more socially progressive text.