This pioneering work, first published in 1986, documents the continuing vitality of the American Indian tradition and of women's leadership within that tradition. In her new preface to this edition, Allen reflects on the remarkable resurgence of American Indian pride and culture in recent times.

"Behind the innocent face of Victorian fairy tales such as Through the Looking Glass or Mopsa the Fairy lurks the spectre of an intense nineteenth-century debate about the very nature - and ownership - of childhood. In the engagingly written Ventures into Childland, U.C. Knoepflmacher illuminates this debate. Offering brilliant rereadings of classics from the "Golden Age of Children's Literature" as well as literature commonly considered "grown-up,"...