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Consuming Agency in Fairy Tales, Childlore, and Folkliterature.  
By Susan Honeyman. (New York: 2010. Pp. vii – 230, illustrations, preface, 
acknowledgements, introduction, notes, bibliography, index.)

BRANDI J. VENABLE

Readers will recognize some of the content in Consuming Agency in Fairy Tales, 
Childlore, and Folkliterature as a re-visitation of older works by Susan Honeyman, 
re-printed here as part of a more cohesive text. The book functions collectively 
as a statement about “the agency of young subjects through material relations” 
(5), or, how food is used to subjugate children. The socio-historical analysis and 
emphasis on the relationship between childhood and material objects (toys and 
food) in the fairy tales, lore, and literature presented in this book are restricted 
geographically to the United States. The discussion begins historically with the rise 
of consumer capitalism starting in the mid-19th century and continuing throughout 
the 20th century. With food as the thematic thread throughout the book, many 
of the chapters are playfully organized around a single tasty treat: gingerbread/
honeycakes, candy, molasses, and spinach. According to Honeyman, these sweet 
temptations have a corrosive effect on young people’s agency as presented in the 
texts she analyzes, often favoring — and thus encouraging — children to adopt 
roles as objects, not subjects. Writing from the perspective of child-rights activism, 
Honeyman skillfully applies interdisciplinary methods to familiar texts (The Wizard 
of Oz and The Velveteen Rabbit, for example) in order to make a powerful 
argument about the manipulative nature of consumption for children. 

Each chapter furnishes its own argument, addressing a specific topic concerning 
the relationship between childhood and consumption. The first chapter documents 
the marginalization of children with the rise of consumer culture. Referencing tales 
like Pinocchio, Honeyman focuses on puppetry and its implication for childhood 
agency. Next, she explores the temptation of food itself, and the socializing 
effect it has on children, analyzing such well-known texts as “Hansel and Gretel” 
and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Halloween rituals and candy companies 
occupy the middle of the book, where the author demonstrates how childhood 
resistance is pacified by adults. In later chapters, the author covers gastronomic 
utopias to determine how food fantasies are used to control the hungry, and also 
highlights the historical progression of Popeye, his connection with spinach, and 
the equation of spinach with power. Honeyman also uses this space to address 
class bias in U.S. nutritional reforms. In conclusion, she contends that hunger 
allows for the body to be exploited. The pervasive struggle highlighted throughout 
this analysis of children’s tales and lore is one against hegemonic control, and 
Honeyman argues that, for children, this occurs through bodily hunger and 
temptation, encompassed in the lure of food. 

In her introduction, Honeyman states that, “much of popular culture tends to 
be ignored in folklore scholarship,” but contends that many popular forms (such 
as the comic book) are aware of, and incorporate, folklore into their works (10). 
Her book acts as a vehicle for bridging distinct disciplinary categories, arguing that 
the issue of childhood agency and consumption is pertinent not just to one field of 



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study, but to many. Indeed, she makes a lofty attempt to tackle several key issues 
surrounding this topic, and the reader may find her/himself wishing the chapters 
were longer and referenced more texts. However, even if the argument is restricted 
by page numbers, the book should incite discussion across academic disciplines, 
bringing together folklorists and child-rights activists, cultural studies and children’s 
literature scholars. For this reason, the book is invaluable to anyone interested in 
childhood studies, no matter what their academic or professional angle. 

Overall, the book serves as an extensive study of childhood agency through 
food lore. While folklorists and cultural studies scholars may recognize references 
to Jay Mechling and Clifford Geertz, and to Roland Barthes and Antonio Gramsci, 
respectively, the book is also pertinent to child-rights activists. Honeyman, an 
Associate Professor of English and a cultural studies scholar, does not claim to be 
a strict folklorist, but she does argue for the importance of folklore to a variety 
of disciplines, including popular culture and cultural studies more generally. 
Folklorists hoping for an ethnographic approach to childhood studies should 
consult another resource; those more inclined toward textual analysis will enjoy 
Honeyman’s decadent assortment of fairy tales, lore, and literature references. 
Because of its interdisciplinary nature, academics and professionals in the fields 
of folklore, childhood studies, children’s literature, fairy tale studies, and cultural 
studies should find significant the arguments made in this book, relevant to their 
specific discipline. Consuming Agency is particularly useful to the student seeking 
to make connections across these fields. 

Children’s Folklore: A Handbook. By Elizabeth Tucker. (Westport, CT: 2008.  
Pp. 1-164, preface, introduction, glossary, bibliography, web resources, index.)

MICHELE D. CASTLEMAN

Elizabeth Tucker’s Children’s Folklore: A Handbook (2009) is an introductory guide 
to the “traditional knowledge shared by a group of two or more children, usually 
without the involvement of adults” (p. 1). The Handbook is a comprehensive 
survey that considers both historical approaches and recent developments in 
the study of children’s folklore. According to Tucker, its purpose is to “provide 
an overview of children’s folklore since the late 1800s” within the major genres 
(p.vii). She defines and provides examples of riddles, jokes, rhymes, taunts, songs, 
cheers, games, pranks, narratives, rituals and material culture. The vast majority 
of the folktales incorporated in the survey are from English-speaking countries, 
although occasional Indo-European lore and personal narratives are included 
as well. Tucker generally provides the context for each sample — the time and 
place it was recorded, the age of the children involved, and the source where it 
appears — and a few brief analytical statements. Tucker notes that her Handbook 
emphasizes “nature lore and imaginative, dangerous, and sexually oriented games” 
more than previous surveys have (p. 2). She regularly interprets the case studies 
for their sexual content or for their implications about gender, race and power 
relations, as well as for other matters of cultural significance. 




