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Pathetic Fallacy: Not actually an insult
What is pathetic fallacy? Pathetic fallacy is a poetic device where, for the purpose of creating symbolic value or another higher-order creative expression, we attribute human emotions to items which don’t feel emotions. Edit Torrent A Short History of Pathetic Fallacy The term ‘pathetic fallacy’ was coined in 1856 by a man called John Ruskin (an art…
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Wolf Children Japanese Anime Film Study
The Japanese anime Wolf Children is an inspiring and engaging film for miniature nature lovers. I have recommended this film to people completely forgetting that it is basically a very sad story though, so consider yourself warned! I wonder if the author of Wolf Children was inspired by the story of Amala and Kamala, two…
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The Hunger Games
It’s safe to say this post contains spoilers about The Hunger Games. Plenty has been said about The Hunger Games and I doubt I can add another single thing, but I have been collecting links on this for ages as they raced through my feed, refusing to read them until I’d seen the movie and…
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Mice in Children’s Literature
Mice are widely represented in folktales, both as protagonists and as helpers. Apparently, there is a subconscious identification on the part of children’s writers of a small and helpless child with one of the smallest animals, also know—maybe without reason—for its lack of courage.
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The Wizard of Oz Novel Study
The Wizard of Oz is in some ways the inverse of Winnie the Pooh. Whereas L. Frank Baum’s Oz series is so highly metaphorical every member of a thinking audience weaves their own symbolism into it, Milne’s Pooh series is so devoid of symbolism that it’s famous among specialists of children’s literature for precisely the…
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Teach With Picturebooks
What’s true of short stories is true of picture books: You should read short stories because each one will give you the full narrative hit—beginning, middle and end—in double-quick time. You’ll get all—well, most of—the satisfaction of a novel, in one small package that might use up 15–20 minutes of your time. Short Stories and…
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Short Story Study For Writers
In the 1880s Brander Matthews said that short stories should be spelt with a hyphen to distinguish between two different forms, which reminds me of the picture book vs picturebook debate. A short story is a story that is short. A short-story proper derives from the Romantic tradition and has its beginnings in myths and legends.…
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Shirley Jackson’s Louisa, Please Come Home Analysis
“Louisa, Please Come Home” is a short story by Shirley Jackson, first published in Ladies Home Journal, 1960.
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The Symbolism of Seasons
In stories for children, as in stories for adults, emphasis on the seasons and the circular nature of time gives a story a feminine feel. Each season carries its own symbolism, but it’s not a clear delineation. Why do we associate cycles and seasons with femininity? Who better to teach us something than Dwight Schrute?…
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The Swimmer by John Cheever Analysis
“The Swimmer”(1964) is considered one of Cheever’s best short stories. Anne Enright feels that this would never have worked as the novel Cheever had originally planned and adds that it would work even better as a short story had he lost one or two pools. (The naturist communists are amusing but we don’t want any…
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Fantasy In Literature For Children
The following notes on Fantasy in Children’s Literature are from lecture by Prof David Beagley, La Trobe University, combined with my own thoughts. People in the children’s book world ask…’Is it suitable?’ ‘Is it the right age level?’ ‘Is it about a contemporary problem?’ These are important questions, but not of primary importance. The primary…
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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…
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Why So Many Animals In Picture Books?
There are many reasons why storytellers sometimes use anthropomorphised animals as characters in very human stories. Here’s a list.