Abstract
This chapter about play shared by children and adults in the Alice books and Coraline opens with a reflection on the connections between these three books as a starting point for an exploration of their ludic dimension within the framework of Edouard Claparède’s spectrum of play and Stuart Brown’s ideas about play being evolutionary and lifelong. Imagination and curiosity are key in Alice’s and Coraline’s play, play that is at times dark. Play and dark play or cruel play (as defined by Scott G. Eberle and Brian Sutton-Smith) shape the heroines’ intergenerational relationships and are vital to their progress towards adulthood. Paradoxically, Alice and Coraline both engage and challenge adults, which in turn shape who they are and who they become.
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Hudson, A. (2021). The Nature of Play and Adult-Child Interaction in the Alice Books and Coraline. In: Deszcz-Tryhubczak, J., Kalla, I.B. (eds) Children’s Literature and Intergenerational Relationships. Critical Approaches to Children's Literature. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-67700-8_3
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