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Death In Children’s Literature
Many people will probably tell you their first brush with death was watching Bambi. I can’t say the same because I never saw the animated Disney film. I thought I knew the story for the longest time, because my grandmother bought me a Little Golden Book called Bambi and Friends Of The Forest. I still…
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Content We Crave
What do you want from a story? How does this differ over time? What do you think other people want from their stories? When writing your own, which human cravings are you catering to? Overweening pride, lust, natural disaster, sheer avarice, all varieties of personal weirdness, terrible things done by polite and decent people —…
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Dystopia, Apocalypse and Climate Fiction
According to a large portion of the world’s population, humankind is already living in a dystopia.
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Postmodernism In Literature
Before taking a look at postmodern picture books, let’s take a look at how the postmodern short story has been described. THE POSTMODERN SHORT STORY The postmodern short story came in the middle of the 20th century. Stories became ‘anti-stories’. Postmodernism is “art’s way of replenishing itself by way of returning to the past in general,…
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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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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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Glossary of Picturebook Terminology For Review and Analysis
Is it picture book or picturebook? When commentators put the two words together, they do so mindfully: The terminology we apply to books, texts and reading do not seem to attach to the picturebook so readily. For example, if we speak of ‘the text’ of a picturebook, do we mean the words or the words-and-pictures…