_Body_ is a noun, though it was a verb: “To give form, shape, or physical presence to; to embody. Now chiefly literary or poet” (_OED_). The _OED_ gives five definitions for the noun: the “physical form of a person, animal, or plant”; the “main portion, the trunk”; “a person”; “a collective mass”; and “substance, matter, a portion of matter.” Then the _OED_ traces the etymology of the word back to “Old High German _botah_: body, corpse, trunk (of the body).” Additionally, the _OED_ finds that “the sense development has been influenced by association with classical Latin corpus,” which leads to _body_ in the sense of a body of literature, or “a compendium of writings on a subject, textbook (e.g. _corpus i_ū_ris_ law textbook).” The _OED_’s five core definitions all emphasize physicality and dominance, the concrete and the aggregate, the literal and the central or prevailing. These definitions highlight two key debates in the field of children’s literature and culture: the way children’s literature represents the physical body of the child and how we understand the body of texts we call children’s literature. Both debates have to do with the normative, an association that can be traced back to the _OED_’s...