Voracious children

"Voracious Children explores food and the way it is used to seduce, to pleasure, and to coerce not only the characters within children's literature but also its readers. There are a number of gripping questions that immediately arise concerning the quantity and quality of the food featured in children's fiction: why are feasting fantasies so prevalent, especially in the British classics? What exactly is their appeal to historical and contemporary readers? What do literary food events do to readers? Is food the sex of children's literature? The subject of children eating is compelling, but why is it that stories about children being eaten are horrifying as well as incredibly alluring? This book reveals that food in fiction does far, far more than just create verisimilitude or merely address greedy readers' desires. Carolyn Daniel demonstrates that the food trope in children's literature actually teaches children how to be human through the imperative to eat "good" food in a "proper" controlled manner. Examining timely topics such as childhood obesity and anorexia, the author demonstrates that children's literature routinely attempts to regulate childhood eating practices and only awards subjectivity and agency to those characters who demonstrate "normal" appetites."--Jacket.