Pictures of Innocence: The History and Crisis of Ideal Childhood (Interplay)

Rating:
Summary: Hard-going
Review: I found the text of this book rather hard-going; it requires quite some concentration to read. No doubt the content of the book is very good, but it's too hard for me to read to really be able to say.

Rating:
Summary: Higonnet is smart, but she's wrong on the law
Review: There' a lot to recommend this book: Higonnet has you exercising your critical judgment on a plethora of everyday images, new and antiquarian, even if you disagree with her analysis.

However, readers should be aware that the author substantially misstates the law in several places. She cites some interpretive dicta from a district court case in California (US v. Dost) as being the actual text of the federal law. The federal law isn't nearly as vague as she suggests. Moreover she says that the Child Pornography Prevention Act of 1995 criminalized depictions of breasts and buttocks of minors. Untrue. The final bill passed deleted these provisions. These are serious omissions to a sensitive discussion.

Lawrence A. Stanley, Esq. NY, NY