Dreaming the Myth Onwards

The material turn in cultural studies means that the spotlight has shone on child-players, but child-characters have remained in the wings. Children’s Literature Studies has the relevant critical apparatuses to theorise fictional childhoods, but these approaches will not stay relevant unless we can apply them to videogames—the medium which will be memorialised as the defining art form of the twenty-first century. In this introduction, I argue in favour of building a bridge between Children’s Literature studies and Games Studies in order to document the scripts, symbols, and social norms that constitute child-characters in videogames.