Mighty Children and the Transformation of Authoritative Adults in Andrea Beaty's The Questioneers: A Discussion of Age-Based Power as a Theme in Literature for Children.

Andrea Beaty's and David Roberts's The Questioneers series—including Iggy Peck Architect (2007); Rosie Revere Engineer (2013); Ada Twist Scientist (2016); Sofia Valdez Future Prez (2019); and Aaron Slater Illustrator (2021)—features imaginative children navigating challenges in pursuit of their goals. This article explores how the series interrogates age-based power dynamics through the interactions between its young protagonists and authoritative adults. Drawing on Maria Nikolajeva's concept of aetonormativity and Clementine Beauvais's formulations of children's might adults' authority and the transformation from one to another this article explores the books' foregrounding of dialogic encounters that transform both children and adults in a renegotiation of age-based power. These encounters occur through Max Weber's three types of legitimate authority: legal traditional and charismatic. Through close reading of the five picturebooks in the series alongside theoretical engagements with age power and Freirean learning communities the article considers the arguably irresolvable tension between literature for children that represents those renegotiations of power and its context in the inherently aetonormative structure of children's book publishing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]