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Ideology In Children’s Literature
Every novel, every painting, every work of art with meaning contains an ideology. Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism, as I understand it. It seems to me nonsense, in a period like our own, to think one can avoid writing of such…
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Religion In Children’s Literature
Religion is still everywhere. So, reflecting and influencing the culture in which we find them, children’s books are not secular either. It’s interesting to interrogate the role of religion in children’s literature because children’s literature is an acculturating medium: It will introduce children to social life and history so is both educational and enjoyable. Many…
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Compare and Contrast: Twilight and Pride and Prejudice
Is Twilight the modern Pride and Prejudice? There are some interesting parallels. I listened to a lecture from the Kid You Not Podcast in which Clementine and Lauren discuss the appeal of dark paranormal romance among teenage girls. This reminded me of a lecture delivered by La Trobe University’s David Beagley. Fiction For Young Adults, Lecture…
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The Appeal Of Dark Paranormal Romance
Paranormal romance is a literary subgenre of the romance novel. A type of speculative fiction, paranormal romance focuses on romance and includes elements beyond the range of scientific explanation.
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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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The Problem Novel and Bibliotherapy
“The Problem Novel” is a dismissive term for a realistic young adult story which focuses solely on the worst aspects of life: murder, eating disorder, discrimination, imprisonment, rape, drug abuse and similar. The following draws heavily from Lecture 03 of Fiction For Young Adults, delivered by Prof David Beagley at La Trobe University. Lectures are…
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Parasocial Relationships In Fiction and Life
Let’s talk about parasocial relationships (PSRs). Who do you think of when you think Person In A Parasocial Relationship? Is it, by any chance, an Annie Wilkes archetype cf. Stephen King’s Misery?
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Stereotypes, Tropes, Caricature and Archetypes
WHAT IS A STEREOTYPE? “Stereotype” is originally a printing term referring to the plate used to print identical copies of something, so “break[s] the mold” is an apt phrase for describing something that’s distinctly different from the stereotype. (“Mold” refers to the mold used to create identical objects, not the mold that grows on old…
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Portal Fantasy and the Symbolism of Doors
Portal fantasy or portal speculative fiction is a story which transports the characters into a magical world via a gate/wardrobe/magical tree or anything else the author might imagine. As a child, this was my favourite kind of story, alongside the everyday humorous category of middle grade fiction written so well by Beverly Cleary.
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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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The Study Of Film Equals The Study Of Picturebooks
In juxtaposing a series of pictures in order to imply the sequence of a story, picture-book artists act much as filmmakers do. Andre Bazin [film critic] suggests that montage, assumed by many to be the essence of film art, is “the creation of a sense of meaning not proper to the images themselves but derived exclusively…
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Happy vs Sad Endings In Children’s Stories
If you want a happy ending, that depends, of course, on where you stop your story. Orson Welles I want them all to have happy endings although I do realize this is not true to life. But I get attached to my characters and I don’t really want to do them in. And I think…
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Television Endings
It’s impossible to say anything about television endings without first drawing a sharp line down the middle of two very different narratives: The storytelling in each looks quite different. CASE STUDIES The Sopranos When I was talking to HBO recently, I told them about a big learning experience I had thanks to the finale of…
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Short Story Endings and Extrapolation
A key term in classical Chinese poetry is ju jue yi bujue (句絕意不絕) which means “lines that end but meaning that does not end.” This is a useful distinction, and a similar concept applies to many short stories. Staying in Asia, Japan also has a concept which applies to many types of short story endings:…