AustLit

McCormack investigates the silence in children's literature regarding sexual abuse, particularly incest, through two novels, American writer Cynthia Voight's When She Hollers and Touching Earth Lightly by Margo Lanagan, both of which focus on what is seen as inappropriate subject matter for children and adolescents. McCormack looks at the novels thematic connection to Red Riding Hood as the archetypal fairytale, which warns that girls who don't excercise control over their sexual desire will be devoured by their own sexuality in the form of a dangerous wolf. Her feminist reading looks at how the texts differ from the original fairystory and what (if any) agency is given to female characters who transgress the boundaries of acceptable sexual behaviour. She concludes however, that both novels uphold the 'gender-based mores of a patriarchal society' whereby uncontrolled female sexuality is seen as dangerous and threatening and any 'femaleness that challenges feminine passivity is to be suppressed' (30-31).