BBC Radio 3 Sunday Feature: Not Suitable for Children

Description

Dr Sophie Coulombeau explores the history of stories for children that have sent adults into a spin. From the trashy delights of Pinkerton detectives in turn-of-the-century Russia to the culture wars endlessly being fought out across America over books that feature anything from intimations of sexuality to ungodliness to wizardry.

The Soviet Union had its own culture war of a distinctly deadlier nature, where children's fiction was marked out by the state for special attention and indeed flourished with astonishingly inventive picture books and stories but, as the edicts of Socialist Realism became more iron-fisted and ham-handed, a battle for fantasy was waged by its most eloquent proponent Korney Chukovsky.

Research and Interview