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Guess Who’s Coming For Dinner? Picture Book Analysis
Guess Who’s Coming For Dinner is one of my all-time favourite picture books and funnily enough, it has been created by a husband and wife team. Some of the very best picture books are obviously created with a lot of collaboration between writer and illustrator, and it amazes me that so many (also good) picture…
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Where Is The Green Sheep? Picture Book Analysis
A very popular Australian picture book. Looks so simple. But what’s the secret sauce?
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Picturebook Study: Colour Analysis
Colour is a language.
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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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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 A character’s room can contribute to characterisation… Setting is frequently used to symbolize the character’s moods…
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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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Getting Lost And Storytelling
Stories that scare me the most often involve getting lost. The scariest Australian stories are, to me, the ones where a little boy goes out into the wilderness and dies in the heat, unable to find his house.
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The Meaning of “Urban Legend”
An urban legend is typically told as a true story. These stories are not true at all, but often have a factual basis. They may begin with a real incident, but they may entirely fictional. They share similarities with tall stories.
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The Man In The Woods by Shirley Jackson Short Story Analysis
In the early 1800s, the Grimm Brothers collected a fairy tale called “The Old Woman In The Woods” and included it for publication in Household Tales. Is Shirley Jackson’s “The Man In The Woods” a riff on that, or something different altogether? (Find Jackson’s story collected in Dark Tales.) I’ll be arguing that “The Man…
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The Lost Daughter: Why does Leda steal the doll?
The Lost Daughter is a 2021 film directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal, based on the novel by Italian writer Elena Ferrante (2015). This is Gyllenhaal’s debut as feature-length film director. I look forward to seeing what she does next.
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A Glossary of Fairytale Words
Terms you come across when reading up on fairy tales.
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The Halfmen of O by Maurice Gee
The World of O is a trilogy of fantasy novels by New Zealand author Maurice Gee published 1982-1985. The Halfmen of O (1982) is the first of the series. We might call this series The New Zealand Chronicles of Narnia with a bit of sci-fi thrown in. There are also tropes recognisable from The Wonderful…
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The Wind In The Willows by Kenneth Grahame Analysis
A man in the shape of a Mole’s body feels a yearning which can only be fulfilled by entering the most transgressive parts of his own psychology, externally represented by the Wild Wood. On his journey, he meets other men, each driven by their own secret (and not so secret) passions.
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Fear of Engulfment in Storytelling
There’s a very good reason why girls should be told the truth about baby-making as soon as they ask: If she’s old enough to be asking, she’s old enough to be worrying.
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Wheel On The Chimney by Wise Brown and Gergely 1954
Wheel On The Chimney is a calm, bird-focused storified description of an old custom observed throughout various parts of Southern Europe.