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Camp vs Kitsch
What is the difference between ‘camp’ and ‘kitsch’? Camp is playful; kitsch is judgy. CAMP: A PREFERENCE FOR REVERSAL AND REJECTION OF SINCERITY I heard someone, can’t remember their name, I think it was on the NPR podcast Pop culture Happy Hour, call the Fast and the Furious franchise “straight camp.” It occurred to me,…
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Babysitter’s Club Novel Study
It would be easy to dismiss The Babysitter’s Club as an outdated storyline aimed at channeling girls into careers in childcare, turning them into good little obedient baby-machines and not much else. However, never judge a book by its title, right? (Because a lot of the time authors don’t choose their own titles anyhow.) And…
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Inspector Gadget: How Children’s Media Has Changed
When a children’s story gets a remake we see more clearly how storytelling has changed. Inspector Gadget makes for a case study. Interestingly, Esquire calls this ‘the digital era’, under the idea that the use of computers has an integral impact on narrative. The medium is the message, and all that. 1. FASTER PACE Steven DeNure, president…
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How To Write Powerful Metaphor
The poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge attended lectures on chemistry to expand his ‘stock of metaphors’. Quite Interesting Around 1 in 8 words (i.e., 12,6% of all words) across different genres is used metaphorically. Steen, G. J., Dorst, A. G., Herrmann, J. B., Kaal, A. A., Krennmayr, T., & Pasma, T. (2010). A method for linguistic metaphor identification: From MIP to MIPVU. Amsterdam: John…
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TV Study: Stranger Things (2016)
Stranger Things is a Netflix series created by the brilliantly named ‘Duffer Brothers’, out this year but set in 1983. Though I suspect strong ‘recency bias’, season one scores a very high 9.2 on IMDb. **CONTAINS ALL THE SPOILERS** The show feels like a mixture of Twin Peaks (with the missing kids and small community), Freaks…
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Pyrrhic Victories and Tragic Dilemmas In Fiction
In the ultimate pyrrhic victory, the main character has achieved what needs doing but is dead by the end of the story.
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Psychological Novel And Children’s Literature
Modern young adult literature bears many similarities to what has previously been called ‘the psychological novel’. A psychological novel is a work of prose-fiction which places more than the usual amount of emphasis on interior characterisation, and on the motives, circumstances, and internal action which springs from, and develops, external action. Wikipedia The psychological novel is also called “psychological realism”. A…
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Olivia and the Fairy Princesses by Ian Falconer Analysis
Olivia and the Fairy Princesses is the third Olivia book I’m taking a close look at; the first was Olivia, which I really liked; the next was Olivia and the Missing Toy which I really didn’t and now for a story which has garnered Olivia a bit of a reputation among reviewers on social media…
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Anton Can Do Magic by Ole Könnecke Analysis
Anton Can Do Magic by Ole Könnecke is a great book for parents who would like to teach their kids The Magic of Reality (as expressed by Richard Dawkins and others). Written and illustrated by a German picturebook maker, this was translated by New Zealand’s Gecko Press. Anton Can Do Magic is part of a…
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The Very Hungry Caterpillar Picture Book Analysis
Along with others such as Goodnight Moon, The Very Hungry Caterpillar makes for an excellent case study into how simple can equal super-popular. I like this book because of its subtle healthy-eating message. So many picture books rely upon stock yuck, but here it’s the green food that saves the caterpillar. The “Book Will Turn…
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Stuck by Oliver Jeffers (2011) Analysis
When Floyd’s kite gets stuck in a tree, he tries to knock it down with increasingly larger and more outrageous things. A perfect picture book by Oliver Jeffers. STORY STRUCTURE OF STUCK There’s a long oral tradition of stories which get cumulatively more and more ridiculous until the most ridiculous idea ends the story. “The…
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Black Dog by Pamela Allen Analysis
Black Dog by Pamela Allen (1991) is about a girl who actually neglects her dog, but learns not to by the end. A few weeks ago I took a close look at the much more recent picture book with a similar name, Blackdog by Levi Pinfold. In that, I interpret the black dog as agoraphobia…
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Stick Man by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler Analysis
In Stick Man, an anthropomorphised stick ends up far away from his family tree when he is fetched by a dog, thrown by a child, used as a snowman’s arm, and even put on a fire, but finally, Santa Claus steps in to make sure that Stick Man and his family have a joyous Christmas. Julia…
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The Technique of Ticking Clocks in Storytelling
Once you notice ticking clocks in storytelling you see them in everything, so beware.
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Loveykins by Quentin Blake Picture Book Analysis
The ideology behind Loveykins: Wild creatures, while sometimes requiring some human nurturing if abandoned by their mother as babies, must eventually be returned to the wild. There is also a message against ‘over-mothering’ in this story. Let wild creatures be wild creatures is a close cousin to ‘let kids be kids’. Another picture book with…