When Children Are Not the Target Audience

What I found most interesting about Amphigorey was the fact that each story or image was done in a way that fell very much in line with the look of a children’s book.  The images were a little on the darker side, but still could easily pass for a black and white children’s picture book.  However, once you read the words in accompaniment with these darker images, that’s when the readers understand that these texts are not at all intended for children.  Edward Gorey’s juxtaposition between creating images that are often deemed child-like or child-oriented in terms of style and streamlined simplicity, and attaching them to twisted stories and unsettling phrases creates this great contrast between what exact constitutes adult and children’s literature.  Gorey’s work has the appearance of children’s literature, but the words would be deemed too advanced or dark in nature fr children to actually read.  However, his work also doesn’t have the “look” of an adult novel.  The fact that Edward Gorey’s works in Amphigorey both straddle the line between what is considered fit for adults or children and also crosses over into those two disticnct areas to draw from them and incorporate both sides into his completed creations is what makes his work so simultaneously striking and endearing.