Representations of Childhood Death

by Na Na

Recent events such as the massacres in Dunblane and Arkansas, the deaths of children in terrorist attacks, civil wars and famines, children born with AIDS, and the many abductions and murders of children - including some by children - have placed childhood death firmly in the public consciousness. But how do we understand what it means for a child to die? This book examines the way the deaths of children have been dealt with at different times and in different media. Each contributor has focused on a different way of representing the deaths of children - from superstitions about malign child ghosts through mothers' diaries to horror fiction - and more.

262 pages, Hardcover

Published March 4, 2000

Reviews

[Candy Wood]

Both of the editors have published books about children’s literature, so I expected this book to be more about children’s literature than it actually is. The first four essays are about early texts not intended specifically for children: folktales, ballads, memorials, and parents’ journals and pamphlets. Avery does write about Puritan and Evangelical tracts intended for children’s moral instruction, but then three more chapters consider novels and poems for adults: of those, A. O. J. Cockshut’s essay on child deaths in Dickens concludes that whether we consider the passages profoundly moving or hopelessly sentimental, we recognize Dickens’s “disturbing” skill. Just one essay focuses on contemporary fiction for children: Kevin McCarron finds that the Point Horror series for adolescents contains only violent death that can be seen as unreal. The consequences of thus marginalizing death are explored by Janet Goodall in a concluding essay based on her experience as a physician. Several black-and-white plates are relevant to more than one of the essays.