This essay examines how age, power and agency is represented and reproduced in contemporary Swedish picture books.

This is done through a combination of discourse analysis and literary analysis.

It uses theoretical perspectives from sociology, and views childhood as a social construct. It sees discourse and language use as both representing and constructing social reality in the tradition of Norman Fairclough and critical discourse analysis.

The main results is that the discourses of childhood in the material construct children as a separate group in society, and childhood as a special time in life. Children is portrayed as both social actors and in need of protection from adult themes and worries.