A review by librariandest
Don't Tell the Grown-Ups: The Subversive Power of Children's Literature by Alison Lurie

2.0

For me, this book didn't live up to its title. Sure, it's kind of about "the subversive power of children's literature," but it's actually mostly about the biographies of certain children's authors and how certain children's stories are archetypes for adult literary fiction. And it's not a cohesive book at all. It's a series of essays that were probably originally intended for lit crit mags. When Lurie does address subversiveness, it's usually historical (the book was published in 1990, so I didn't expect nearly every essay to be about Victorian social norms).

I wanted this book to address a subject that really interests me, which is the way some kids books intentionally guide their readers toward a certain way of thinking. I was actually hoping this book would be a better version of my college seminar paper, which was about how Disney movies paved the way for gay rights. Oh well.