"Literature of Us 'Older Children'" by Eric Tribunella
Annotation by Brianna Kessler
Tribunella, Eric L. "Literature For Us 'Older Children': Lost Girls, Seduction Fantasies, And The Reeducation Of Adults." Journal Of Popular Culture 45.3 (2012): 628-648. SPORTDiscus with Full Text. Web. 7 Apr. 2015.
In “Literature of Us ‘Older Children’”, Tribunella discusses the various ways that sexuality, temptation, seduction and other more adult themes are alluded to in numerous children’s stories, including Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Tribunella examines Lost Girls, a graphic novel by Alan Moore and Melinda Gebbie in which Alice, Wendy Darling (Peter Pan) and Dorothy Gale (The Wonderful Wizard of Oz) encounter one another and exchange their unique stories, which are fraught with childhood sex and sexual abuse and focus on the original stories-with a dark twist. Tribunella speculates that Moore and Gebbie are suggesting that children’s literature represents a repression of traumatic events by the children who experienced them. This analysis opens readers to a much darker side of both Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and children’s stories in general and offers a new perspective on Alice’s different encounters in Wonderland.
In “Literature of Us ‘Older Children’”, Tribunella discusses the various ways that sexuality, temptation, seduction and other more adult themes are alluded to in numerous children’s stories, including Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Tribunella examines Lost Girls, a graphic novel by Alan Moore and Melinda Gebbie in which Alice, Wendy Darling (Peter Pan) and Dorothy Gale (The Wonderful Wizard of Oz) encounter one another and exchange their unique stories, which are fraught with childhood sex and sexual abuse and focus on the original stories-with a dark twist. Tribunella speculates that Moore and Gebbie are suggesting that children’s literature represents a repression of traumatic events by the children who experienced them. This analysis opens readers to a much darker side of both Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and children’s stories in general and offers a new perspective on Alice’s different encounters in Wonderland.