Unexpected Insights into Terrorism and National Security Law Through Children's Literature: Reading The Butter Battle Book as Monstrosity
British Journal of American Legal Studies, Vol. 3, 2014
21 Pages Posted: 11 Sep 2013 Last revised: 26 Feb 2015
Date Written: September 11, 2013
Abstract
In this Essay, I explain the ways in which Dr. Seuss’s The Butter Battle Book may be read in order to give legal scholars and practitioners insights on terrorism and related ideas of international law and national security law. Indeed, I understand children’s literature as being instructive not only for acculturation, but also for the ways in which we understand law, politics, and people. My argument is not so much that Dr. Seuss radically reconfigures the ways in which lawyers and law scholars “come to the law,” but that children’s literature is often an unexplored avenue for understanding the complexities of law. Dr. Seuss’s The Butter Battle Book is exemplary of the power of children’s literature to comment on and critique law and politics. Specifically, The Butter Battle Book provides interesting and informative pathways into the critical study of terrorism and national security law.
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