Abstract
The paper interrogates the pleasures for adults of reading children's fiction and locates these pleasures within literary and cultural repertoires, which encompass the essentialist view of childhood. Thus the enquiry critically addresses the framework of literary and cultural traditions. It examines three canonical children's texts, namely Alice in Wonderland, The Wind in the Willows and Peter Pan. The paper also demonstrates, with reference to analytical approaches produced by critics such as Fred Inglis and Humphrey Carpenter (who the author believes are representatives of a particular view still encountered in children's literary criticism), the manner in which the pleasure of reading children's fiction is culturally construed and constructed.
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