This book explores a central methodological issue at the heart of studies of the histories of children and childhood. It questions how we understand the perspectives of children in the past, and not just those of the adults who often defined and constrained the parameters of youthful lives. Drawing on a range of different sources, including institutional records, interviews, artwork, diaries, letters, memoirs, and objects, this interdisciplinary volume uncovers the voices of historical children, and discusses the challenges of situating these voices, and interpreting juvenile agency and desire. Divided into four sections, the book considers children's voices in different types of historical records, examining children's letters and correspondence, as well as multimedia texts such as film, advertising and art, along with oral histories, and institutional archives.

Chapter 1 - Hearing Children's Voices: Conceptual and Methodological Challenges by Nell Musgrove, Carla Pascoe Leahy and Kristine Moruzi.- Part I: Children's Letters and Correspondence.- Chapter 2 - Children's Voices in the Boy's Own Paper and the Girl's Own Paper, 1800-1900 by Shih-Wen Sue Chen and Kristine Moruzi.- Chapter 3 - Where 'Taniwha' met 'Colonial Girl': The Social Uses of the Nom de Plume in New Zealand Youth Correspondence Pages, 1880-1920 by Anna Gilderdale.- Chapter 4 - "Dear Monsieur Administrator": Student Writing and the Question of 'Voice' in Early Colonial Senegal by Kelly Duke Bryant.- Chapter 5 - "Str[a]ight from My Heart": Black Lives, Affective Citizenship, and 1960s American Politics by Susan Eckelmann Berghel.- Part II: Images of the Self.- Chapter 6 - Children's Art: Histories and Cultural Meanings of Creative Expression by Displaced Children by Mary Tomsic.- Chapter 7 - Karen B., and Indigenous Girlhood on the Prairies:Disrupting the Images of Indigenous Children in Adoption Advertising in North America by Allyson Stevenson.- Chapter 8 - 'Share the Shame': Curating the Child's Voice in Mortified Nation! by Kate Douglas.- Part III: Remembered Voices.- Chapter 9 - Oral Histories and Enlightened Witnessing by Deidre Michell.- Chapter 10 - "Basically you were either a mainstream sort of person or you went to the Leadmill and the Limit": Understanding Post-War Youth Culture through Oral History by Sarah Kenny.- Part IV: Speaking Back to Institutions.- Chapter 11 - Muffled Voices: Recovering Children's Voices from England's Social Margins by Greg T. Smith.- Chapter 12 - Revolutionary Successors: Deviant Children and Youth in the People's Republic of China, 1956-1966 by Melissa Brzycki.- Chapter 13 - Lost and Found: Counter-Narratives of Dis/Located Children by Frank Golding and Jacqueline Z. Wilson.