Abstract: “Red children” was the dominant image in the children's novels of the Seventeen Years. As a product of proletarian discourse propaganda, the “Seventeen Years” novels integrated children's feelings and thoughts into the mainstream ideology of the country, qualifying them as the successors to socialism. Because of its prominent educational function, the interpretation of the image of the red children has long been bound up with political history to show a trajectory of transmutation that suits the characteristics of the times. The dynamic and complex growth of the children is singularly manifested in the enhancement of the characters' revolutionary consciousness and class awareness, while their external physical growth is obscured and their internal spiritual growth becomes the dominant orientation for analysing their value purpose. In the space of the revolutionary narrative, the body of the red children breaks the linear and closed growth in the past, presents the characteristics of growing together with the world and intermingling with the forward march of history, and realises the metamorphosis of the child to the young hero in the process of moving towards the revolution from the children's “playful” nature.

Key words: “seventeen years”, children's fiction, red children, physical growth