SOURCE: Davis, Jonathan P. “Childhood and Rites of Passage.” In Stephen King's America, pp. 48-69. Bowling Green, Ohio: Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1994.

In the following essay, Davis explores King's treatment of childhood in his short fiction and novels.

The child in adult life is defenceless And if he is grown-up, knows it, And the grown-up looks at the childish part And despises it. 

—Stevie Smith “To Carry the Child”

Anyone who has read Stephen King extensively will find that he spends a large amount of time exploring childhood. Childhood to King is a magical time, a time when the world seems magnificent in its literal beauty, a time when a human being is most splendid because of ignorance of worldly evil. King recollects with fondness an age when imaginative capacities are boundless because they are not yet bogged down by the spirit-corrupting concerns of adulthood. This...