Let us hear questions in their hearts and let us hear them with our hearts Let us celebrate children (Myers, Glorious Angels, n.p.) One afternoon not long ago, I spent over three hours with a group of diverse colleagues deliberating on how is negotiated in light of post-structuralist theory and philosophy. After class, I felt stimulated by theoretical constructs at which we'd arrived. But as my mental high subsided, reality crept back into my thoughts. I began to consider how many young men had fallen victim to a violent crime while I mused with novelty over the production of How many young women under age of 16 had been impregnated during those three hours? In throes of what I diagnose as black intelligentsia withdrawal, my deliberation on came crashing down to terre/firma; our discussion had not changed a thing that is happening around me in space. As a man, I find this a particularly disheartening and disempowering sensation; often, while many of my colleagues retreat obliviously to coffeehouses to continue their discussions of theoretical matters, pressures and realities of real space invariably seem to prevent me from enjoying such leisure. I frequently find myself in midst of intellectual discourse wondering how, if ever, these battles will genuinely affect realities outside of classroom. While post-structuralists skeptically contest notions and test certainties of what is real, I would be quite tickled to observe them trying to explain their theories to folks that I grew up with - people who are facing - very problems. In short, time and reality, theory and practice are very tangible issues that I wrestle with consciously. The clock is always ticking, in my estimation, at a faster pace for folks, especially for children. Without question, literary critical theory has opened up a vast to unlock discursive values of texts for their usefulness, timelessness, and function. But how can literature and theory be combined in their most cogent form, to exact change in social practices? In short, how do we use literature to facilitate liberatory struggle? One underexamined, overlooked, and neglected domain exists in area of children's literature. This fertile genre provides us with a means to engage minds of proximate generation before they are swept away by whirlwind of indoctrinated misinformation promulgated by mass media - agents of mediated images and hegemonic ideology. In area of children's literature, we - as scholars, thinkers, educators, and parents - can transform theory into practice that will enhance developing critical minds of our collective future. If we want to theorize about how gender and race are mere social we must then accept that these same social constructions have manifested and asserted themselves in very real ways. In order to defuse punitive damages wrought upon society by these constructions, we must actively engage in deprogramming destructive ideologies before they crystallize within mind set of next generation. Certainly, television and cinema are viable alternate resources, but neither can replace active interrogatory processes that germinate from engagement with a malleable literary text. While a television show can passively socialize a young mind into accepting a mediated image of reality, children's literature allows young minds to participate in production of space, to create their own realities, both real and imagined. When children and young adults create images, this activity brings forth a sense of agency that reflexively evokes power, for when we create an image, we can create our own realities and our own selves. Television - in its breakneck thirty-minute conflicts and resolutions - and film - in its two-hour, multi-million-dollar productions often deny and suppress active production of images because medium is already ever-present for its spectators to see, absorb, and accept. …