Book Reviews 164 by our lives as academics from the wealthiest nations, both East and West” (3). However, this weakness could become a strength if the text does indeed “prompt other researchers and authors to widen the scope of research and reporting, so that truly international and global insights are presented in future works” (3). Review by Julie Ernst Julie Ernst received her Ph.D. in Forest Resources and Conservation at the University of Florida, where she focused on environmental education and education research and evaluation. She is currently the Director of Graduate Studies for the Master of Environmental Education program at the University of Minnesota Duluth. Her research has focused on environmental education outcomes, teacher professional development, and nature experiences in early childhood education. Our Children and Other Animals: The Cultural Construction of Human-Animal Relations in Childhood Mathew Cole and Kate Stewart (2014). Farnham, Surrey, England: Ashgate, 193 pages. $104.38 (hardcover); ISBN 978-1-4094-6460-0. Children often feel a loving kinship with nonhuman animals but lose much of this feeling as they grow up. How does this happen? In Our Children and Other Animals, sociologists Mathew Cole and Kate Stewart describe how the socialization process alters children’s emotional responses to other species. Drawing largely on examples from the UK, Cole and Stewart examine how children’s feelings about animals change along two social dimensions. The first dimension considers the extent to which children think of nonhuman animals as friends or mere objects-of-use. The second dimension concerns the degree to which nonhuman animals enter children’s awareness—the degree to which they are visible to children and available to their other senses. Using these two dimensions as reference points, Cole and Stewart look at ways in which families, schools, toy stores, and other institutions teach children that companionship and sensory contact with other animals is wonderful—but only for a narrow range of species, notably those called “pets.” Many other species, children gradually learn, are to be exploited in any way that humans wish, while the details of this exploitation are kept out of children’s awareness. The authors provide several interesting case studies of the socialization process. I will summarize two of them in a bit of detail. One case study looks at the ways in which four magazines, primarily marketed to pre-teen girls, depict animals as “cute.” Examining the magazines’ most recent issues, the authors found numerous photos and drawings of kittens, puppies, kits (infant rabbits) and ponies, accompanied by verbal tags such as “Kitten cuties” and Book Reviews 165 “They’re super-cute” (102). The magazines also included photographs of toys and cartoon-like images with captions such as “Play with me!” and “I’m hungry” (105). The authors say that these captions convey the message that the animals’ overpowering need is for human companionship and care. The authors point out that, “Of the 89 images of nonhuman animals on the covers of the magazines, none are of the most commonly ‘farmed’ animals likely to be consumed by the magazines’ readers (cow, pigs, sheep, ‘poultry,’ or fishes)” (99). The cutie magazines, the authors conclude, channel children’s empathy toward a select number of animals and away from those who are the most intensely confined and slaughtered. I did notice a few exceptions. A few species depicted as cute are sometimes raised on factory farms for human consumption. This is true of infant rabbits and ducklings. Moreover, the magazines sometimes show images of cute chicks, billions of whom suffer horribly on factory farms in the UK and US. Factory farms routinely subject the female chicks to painful procedures, while killing almost all the male chicks. So not all animals portrayed as cute are free from factory farming. But the authors are undoubtedly correct that the magazines shield children from all animal abuse and killing. Overall, I found the authors’ analysis of cuteness to be enlightening. It merits replication and further study. A second case study is of Hamleys toy store in London, which bills itself as “The Finest Toy Shop in the World.” The authors observe that the shop is organized into five floors, “with ascending levels corresponding with the...
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Dec 11, 2016
Alison Hooper 
Open Access