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Norton’s Hut by John Marsden Picture Book Analysis
Norton’s Hut is an out-of-print Australian picture book, the second picture book written by John Marsden, and illustrated by Peter Gouldthorpe. The following notes are from Genres In Children’s Literature: Lecture 04: Author and Illustrator Devices presented by David Beagley, La Trobe University, podcast available on iTunes U. PARATEXT When a young group of hikers […]
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Picturebooks For Older Readers
Children’s literature continues to evolve as society evolves alongside our concept of ‘child’. A Brief History Of Teenagers The teenager is an idea from the 1950s. Before that you were a child, and then you were an adult. The transition was recognised earlier than the 1950s, but before the 1950s teenagers were not treated as…
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Storytelling And Subversion: How is it done?
Subversion of reader expectation to challenge long-held beliefs is one of the most difficult — and the most important — things storytellers can do.
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Stories To Complement The Artifacts
The Artifacts is a story about: the power of imagination the value of memory over material objects loss disappointment betrayal Here are some stories you might like to read/study if you are interested in themes touched upon in The Artifacts. Picturebooks These next three books are similar to The Artifacts in that they share a…
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Princesses In Children’s Stories
WHY ALL THE PRINCESSES? The proliferation of princesses in stories for children is partly explained by Maria Nikolajeva in Rhetoric of Character In Children’s Literature: A structural approach to formulaic fiction, presented by John G. Cawelti (1976, 91), singles out four roles in a detective story: the victim, the criminal, the detective, and those threatened by…
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A Brief History Of The Adventure Story In English
I’m going on an adventure And who knows, what will be Or, what will become of me But one thing is for sureAn adventure it shall be Athey Thompson Edgar Rice Burroughs is probably the most influential writer in the entire history of the world. By giving romance and adventure to a whole generation of boys, Burroughs…
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Representation and Inclusion Vs Diversity
When talk of diversity expands beyond race it still ends up looking very much like a checklist of compartmentalized identities. Can we get a child in a wheelchair? Check. Can the doctor be African American, and a woman? Check and check. … For adults I often describe the difference between diversity and inclusion as the difference…
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Stories About Female Friendships
I should like to have friends, I confess. I do not suppose I ever shall. But there have been moments when I have realized what friendship might be. Rare moments – but never forgotten. Friendship is a binding, as solemn as marriage. We take each other for life, through everything – forever. But it’s not…
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What Is A Motif, Visual Motif and Leitmotif?
What is a motif, how is it different from symbolism, and what are the different kinds?
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On Exposition
This is from a book on screenwriting by Robert McKee, but applies also to picturebooks. I’m surprised at how much it sounds like that terrible dating book written for women The Rules. (I saw the authors on Oprah years ago.) Parse out exposition bit by bit though the entire story. You can reveal exposition well into…
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Middle Grade Writing Advice
WHAT IS MIDDLE GRADE LITERATURE? Middle grade fiction is not written for middle school kids despite sounding like it ought to be. Middle grade is actually aimed at eight- to twelve-year olds, which sometimes bleeds over into seven to thirteen. You can include romance, but only a little. Provide smaller solvable problems and solve them.…
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Letters And Diaries In Children’s Literature
Let’s take a look at various kinds of first-person narratives: EXAMPLES OF FICTIONAL DIARIES IN CHILDREN’S LITERATURE The fictional diary is a popular narrative technique in children’s fiction. The huge success of Jeff Kinney’s book have led to a boom in the diary format in middle grade literature. WRITING FICTION IN DIARY FORM Stories in…
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Food And Sex In Children’s Literature
Food plays an important role in children’s literature, and is one difference between mainstream literature and literature for children. Food means all sorts of things throughout literature — sometimes it symbolizes good, other times evil. Writers don’t care what they eat. They just care what you think of them. Sport, Harriet the Spy Why All…
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Work and Manual Labour In Children’s Literature and Art
Labor is used symbolically, as a temporary trial through which the young protagonists have to go before they can find their true place in society. The depiction of labor is highly ambiguous: it is a punishment, and even when chosen voluntarily… it is a burden that brings neither joy nor satisfaction. The message young readers…
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Who does the nurturing work in children’s books?
“Mothers in the books were more likely than fathers to perform almost every nurturing behaviour, including verbal and physical expressions of love, encouraging, praising and listening,” the researchers write. Similarly, mothers outperformed fathers on every care-giving behaviour. Gender stereotypes plague children’s picture books, from Salon Mothers often appear at the beginnings of hero tales. They…
