"This book is unusually rewarding in that its author has pulled off the rare trick of providing deep philosophical and theoretical underpinnings to a comprehensive reconsideration of childhood. Priscilla Alderson deploys Bhaskar's 'dialectical critical realism' to excellent effect, illuminating not only our understanding of the presence, and absence, of children in our lives and discourses, but also the field of childhood studies. It is rare that...