Children had a special status - protected from the outside world - and they dressed for the part in a way that made that special status immediately visible to themselves and the adults.
Ray Bradbury was the first author that I was really exposed to back in grade school. I'm a big Philip K. Dick fan, but the emotion and humanity that Bradbury brings to his stories and the way he uses sci-fi to get at the human heart is something that's unique and for me incredibly influential.
I can understand why those primitive desert people think a camera steals their soul. It is unnatural to see yourself from the outside.