'She makes them tingle all over' : eroticising the child in twentieth-century Australian picture books

Journal article

Hillel, Margot. (2011). 'She makes them tingle all over' : eroticising the child in twentieth-century Australian picture books. History of Education & Children's Literature. VI(1), pp. 199 - 214.
AuthorsHillel, Margot
Abstract

Children’s books provide a great deal of insight into adult views of childhood and give us another views of social attitudes to children. In this article the A., by examining some selected picture books of literature for children which were published in Australia between the two world wars, underlines the complexity of the message conveyed by texts as well as, in particular, by illustrations, in this way shedding light on the emergence of a contradictory and “sexualized” construction of childhood – which, at a closer reading, appears to be the manifestation of a mechanism, only apparently contradictory but actually very sophisticated, for valorising a view of childhood as entirely innocent with illustrations which, supporting the pretty and appealing, promote an eroticized image of it.

KeywordsHistory of Education; Children’s and Youth Literature; Picture book; Childhood; Conceptual Imagery; Australia; XXth Century
Year2011
JournalHistory of Education & Children's Literature
Journal citationVI (1), pp. 199 - 214
PublisherUniversita degli Studi di Macerata
ISSN1971-1093
Scopus EID2-s2.0-79960827659
Open accessOpen access
Page range199 - 214
Publisher's version
Place of publicationItaly
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