The Undead Child in Popular Culture Representations of Childhoods Past, Present, and PreservedBy CraigMartin and DebbieOlson (Eds), New York, NY: Routledge. 2024. pp. 260. £130.00 (hbk)

The association of childhood and the undead is an unconventional yet culturally significant concept across various contexts. In popular culture, the undead are often portrayed as monstrous beings, originating from horror and clandestine science, which transcend the boundaries between life and death and inhabit an ethereal domain. This extends to undead children, who appear as vampires, zombies, ghosts, and other entities from folklore and popular narratives. These portrayals effectively emphasize the unnatural essence of deceased children, which challenge conventional depictions that present childhood innocence as an inherent and “natural” state. This book offers a comprehensive analysis of the cultural construction of childhood and its metaphorical representation as the undead in popular culture. Organized into 12 chapters, each provides a unique critical perspective. The chapters collectively examine nostalgic texts, historical representations of childhood, childhood memorabilia, undead children, spectral youth, visual depictions and relics of deceased minors, and resistance to the onset of adulthood. By broadening the concept of undeath beyond its traditional association with horror while acknowledging its origins in the genre, this book explores endeavors aimed at countering the ephemeral nature of childhood experiences in the realm of popular culture. The book is structured into three sections, each containing four chapters that dissect the theme “The Undead Children in Popular Culture.” In the first chapter of the first section, Althofer conducted an analysis of the works of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, thereby underscoring the persistent motif of the perpetual existence of child laborers as a fundamental theme within their critiques of capitalism. The author asserts that, within the capitalist economic framework, the labor process exacerbates the sacrificial conditions endured by working-class children, who are effectively subjugated as disposable machinery. In the subsequent chapter, Anderson adeptly elucidates the nexus between the liminal states of childhood, characterized by a netherworld existence, and the re-experiencing of childhood and adolescent trauma within aquatic settings. In Chapter 3, Karin Beeler explores the genre of resurrected beings and scrutinizes how the depiction of undead children and adolescents reflects a societal desire to “arrest time” and preserve the bond between parent and child. Next up, Chapter 4 delves into the underrepresentation of Black children within a widely celebrated video game franchise. Cober contended that the child character's absence of reproductive futurity poses a threat to human survival and is consequently depicted as queer within the game's narrative. In the second section of the book, Grant, in Chapter 5, highlights that the inclusion of images depicting deceased children within Mumler's works not only bolstered his prosperous business but also served as compelling evidence during his trial. All these images effectively refute accusations of fraud. While, in Chapter 6, Lucy Arnold probes the perceived presence of the absent child within the familial structure and examines how the undead child symbolizes legacies of violence and marginalization. In the next chapter, Maryna Matlock examines Lewis Carroll's utilization of photography in the Alice books, which contended that he immortalized the child Alice Liddell through plate-glass pictures. This preservation perpetually captured the dreamlike essence of the child “taken from life,” which portrayed her as (un)dead and stilled. Finally, in Chapter 8, Thibodeaux argues that de la Mare challenged Victorian notions of childhood by portraying young characters in domestic spaces that are liminal. It presents them as existing in a state of undeath. The final section of the book commences with Chapter 9, in which May examines how sensory representations of deceased children served as indicators of resurfacing past traumas for both the protagonist and the audience. In Chapter 10, Ross contends that Buffy, burdened with responsibilities beyond her years, was haunted by the specter of a lost childhood. In a subsequent Chapter, Hivren Demir-Atay posits that the novel presented the child character, Hassan, and his parents as ethereal entities existing in a state of liminality between life and death. Lastly, in Chapter 12, Martin considers the correlation between two Disney films produced during wartime and their portrayals of German children, who were depicted as being corrupted and enslaved by Nazism. It ultimately constructs “death-worlds” that consign their characters to a state of undeadness. To sum up, childhood is widely recognized as the primary determinant of an individual's development, and early life events and experiences are believed to shape-specific behaviors in adulthood. During this crucial period, children undergo significant physical, cognitive, and emotional growth that establishes the groundwork for their future well-being. Associating death with children is culturally challenging, but the concept of undeadness helps understand the transient yet formative nature of childhood, which remains elusive in popular culture beyond maturation. The chapters in this newly published book herein challenge the conventional notion that childhood ends with coming-of-age experiences, which reveals its temporal resilience and persistence beyond the threshold of adulthood. Moreover, the undead child, defying mortality and aging, serves as a metaphor for the enduring presence of childhood from birth to the end of life.