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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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Hilda Bewildered
Thank you for your interest in this app. Ironically, this page gets more interest now that Hilda Bewildered is unavailable! Hilda Bewildered was released 30 January 2015. Apple removes from sale apps which have not been regularly updated, regardless of whether they continue to work or not. In order to update Hilda we need the…
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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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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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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…
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Writing Activity: Describe A Bedroom
Lectrology, the study of the bed and its surroundings, can be extremely useful and tell you a great deal about the owner, even if it’s only that they are a very knowing and savvy installations artist. Terry Pratchett, Unseen Academicals Each of us has three lives: public, private and secret. We are rarely afforded glimpses into…
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The Science and Pleasure of Reading
Many people who read silently do so by imagining a voice speaking the words they are reading…This could be because when we learn to read, we associate symbols with verbal sounds until the association is effortless…What’s particularly new about this study is that it not only shows that silent reading causes high-frequency electrical activity in…
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Three Ways Of Looking At Character
There are many ways of looking at character: flat vs rounded, static vs dynamic and stylised versus natural. These distinctions are explained below. FLAT/ROUNDED Is this character more ‘flat’ or more ’rounded’? This distinction was first made by E.M. Forster in Aspects of the Novel, who said that a round character is one who is…
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The Features Of Chapter Books
Chapter books are better able to be defined than other types of books because they are for quite a narrow developmental process.
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Why Boys Don’t Read Books About Girls
Why don’t boys read books about girls? Well, first of all, many boys do read books about girls. As for the ones who won’t? They understand that gender is a hierarchy, and their position at the top is tenuous. Also, the adult book buyers in their lives probably aren’t buying them books starring girls, under…
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20th Century Breakfasts In Art And Storytelling
Breakfast eating has changed a lot over time, at least in the West, which in turn has influenced other cultures. These changes have of course been reflected in children’s literature.