Why are children’s images everywhere in evidence in the representational conventions of imagining international community and humanitarian concern, human need and human virtue? What do they depend upon for their imaginative and political efficacy? Children consistently appear in five registers: as embodiments of a basic human goodness, as sufferers, as seers of truth, as ambassadors of peace, and as embodiments of the future. These registers depend on each other for their affective and ritual power, and catalyze many practices including humanitarian fundraising, sponsoring children, and knitting humanitarian “gifts.” The “impossible situations” faced by the Red Cross workers also frequently arose...