Pretty Creatures

In the skeptical climate of post-Reformation Renaissance England, the capacity of both children and fiction to act in the world without themselves being deliberate actors became clear, argues Witmore (English, Carnegie Mellon U.). He finds evidence that children and the products of the imagination were considered kin, not only in fiction, but also pageants, children's theater, The Winter's Tale, and child victims and witnesses in witchcraft trials and possessions. Annotation 穢2008 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)