Children’s Literature as Child Pornography

Abstract

W       W       W , children's literature and child pornography appear to have nothing to do with each other.Children's literature is writing intended for an audience of children.Child pornography, obviously, is not. at it stages activities involving children for an implied audience of adults is a main reason why child pornography is scandalous, and why we have laws circumscribing it.For a lot of adults, the idea that children might be the audience for pornography is almost as horrifying as the idea that pornography can be about children.But let me assume for a moment that the provisions of the criminal code might aff ect children's literature.In economic terms, its implied audience of children is something of an illusion.As well as being the people who write children's literature, adults like you and me are also the ones who edit it, publish it, review it, sell it, and buy it.In the process, these adults are often readers of children's literature.Jack Zipes declares, "My guess is that the largest reading audience of children's books in the United States and England is constituted by those students at the college and university level who take courses in children's literature along with teachers, librarians, and writers, who eagerly and discriminatingly read vast numbers of books for children" ().As a form of writing that, like child pornography, stages childhood experience for a signifi cantly adult audience, might children's literature, too, be at least potentially pornographic?Might texts of children's literature then come under the purview of the criminal code?ESC .- (September/December ): - ESC .