Far from noncombatants whom we seek to protect from the contamination posed by adult knowledge, children form the very basis on which we fight over the nature and values of our society, and over our hopes and fears for the future. Unfortunately, our understanding of childhood and children has not kept pace with their crucial and rapidly changing roles in our culture.

Pulling together a range of different thinkers who have rethought the myths of childhood innocence, The Children's Culture Reader develops a profile of children as creative and critical thinkers who shape society even as it shapes them. The Children's Culture Reader focuses on issues of parent-child relations, child labor, education, play, and especially the relationship of children to mass media and consumer culture. The contributors include Martha Wolfenstein, Philippe Aries, Jacqueline Rose, James Kincaid, Lynn Spigel, Valerie Walkerdine, Ellen Seiter, Annette Kuhn, Eve Sedgwick, Henry Giroux, and Nancy Scheper-Hughes. The reader includes a groundbreaking introduction by the editor and a sourcebook section which excerpts a range of material from popular magazines to child rearing guides from the past 75 years.