In this witty collection of essays, Alison Lurie considers authors such as A.A.Milne, E.Nesbit, Frances Hodgson Burnett, Lewis Carroll and J.R.R.Tolkien, and demonstrates that their enduring quality lies partly in the way they satirize adult society and speak with subversive directness to the imagination of the young reader. Together with fairy tales, rhymes and jokes, their stories provide a more powerful and resonant appeal than more carefully crafted morally improving literature.