Steinberg, Shirley R. and Joe L. Kincheloe, eds. 2004. Kinderculture: The Corporate Construction of Childhood. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2004. $30.00 sc. 322 pp.Hopscotch, jacks, hide-and-seek, tag: once upon a time, simple, communal games such as these were markers of childhood. However, in postmodern world, traditional pastimes no longer define a child's world. Conventional education and even parents have forfeited centrality in life of postmodern child. Instead, into void it both created and seeks to fill steps corporation, new constant in life of child. So argue editors Shirley R. Steinberg and Joe L. Kincheloe; they assert: Using pleasure as its ultimate weapon, corporate children's consumer culture, which we label 'kinderculture,' commodifies cultural objects and turns them into things to purchase rather than objects to contemplate (11).The book incorporates essays from ten authors who critically examine various facets of purchase options corporations offer postmodern child.While book certainly encompasses critical discussions of aspects of (largely pop) culture, is that sufficient to situate it in ever-evolving, somewhat amorphous canon of cultural studies? Editors Steinberg and Kincheloe attempt to answer that question explicitly, contending that, the book resides at intersection of educational/childhood and cultural studies (18). Throughout selected essays, readers will uncover much that connects book directly to cultural studies.In their introduction, Steinberg and Kincheloe explain that corporations, recognizing children's potential as both current and future consumers, target young customers' interests in technology, toys, food, and fantasy (11). Corporations exploit differences between children's tastes and their parents', creating and enforcing a generation gap. Meanwhile, because children play with many tools of adult livelihoods, such as computers, inscrutability of adult world disappears, and children lose a sense of adult culture as mysterious and powerful (30). With adults-whether as parents or teachers-no longer able to command authority by maintenance of a closely guarded culture to which children are admitted in discreet steps (6), a breakdown in family and traditional pedagogy occurs.This void furthers power interests of corporation, which steps in with its own agenda.Several of essays dissect corporations which, in their quest for profit and political objectives, view children as a primary target audience. Most notably, Kincheloe's study of McDonald's and Henry A. Giroux's examination of Disney fit this mold. In former, Kincheloe argues that McDonald's attempts, with distressing success, to present simply as an American institution but as America itself (123), using flags and eagles. Patriotic images notwithstanding, Kincheloe asserts, McDonald's plays a role in separating children and parents both by its commercials and by offering youngsters toys and prizes considered inappropriate by their elders (127). Some of toys Kincheloe cites include Ugly Stickers, Wacky Packs, Toxic High stickers, Garbage Pail Kids, [and] Mass Murderer cards (127). McDonald's is not alone in desiring to portray as U.S. writ small. In terms of instant recognition, mouse ears are every bit as powerful as golden arches.Giroux asks: Are Disney Movies Good for Your Kids? (164). His answer suggests that movies are more about preserving patriarchal stereotypes than promoting positive, pluralistic values. For example, many Disney movies end with a happily-ever-after involving physically attractive females catching and loving handsome men (171). Marrying female ambition to an antiquated definition of success is not Disney's only troubling aspect, however. Giroux refers to Disney's prototype community, Celebration, as less a lesson in new urbanism than a community for largely privileged whites (166). …