Can we really control children through their books, and can the state capture and chain the imagination of the child?
Michael Rosen examines four very different historical attempts at moulding the minds of the young.
1: Behold the Child. The Puritans of the 17th century were the first to write books for children. Inventing new and novel ways to save the souls of their young, they wrote what now seem to be terrifying tales of children on their death beds, or books filled with images and graphic descriptions of brutally tortured Protestant martyrs. Repeat