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Madeline And The Gypsies by Ludwig Bemelmans Analysis
Madeline and the Gypsies is one of the sequels to Madeline a classic picture book by Ludwig Bemelmans. Ludwig Bemelmans named his fictional little girl after his real-life wife. Although if you know any Madelines, you may find her name is spelt (more traditionally) with an extra ‘e’, as was Madeleine Bemelmans’ name. This series
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Bossyboots by David Cox Picture Book Analysis
I was very wary picking up a book called Bossyboots to read to my daughter. ‘Bossy’ is a heavily gendered word. There’s no way a book called ‘Bossyboots’ would ever star a boy. So the first thing I checked was the year of publication. 1985, I thought. Well, this could be a good thing. Overtly
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Lost Pets In Children’s Stories
A child who reads heavily may well be under the impression that the acquisition of pets requires about as much thought as a well-chosen piece of jewellery. Yesterday I rewatched Bridge To Terabithia — a perennial favourite at our house. I can’t remember if this also happens in the book version, but at the end of
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Girls Who Love Dogs In Children’s Literature
What if you have a canine loving girl and she would like to see herself reflected in literature? Well, girls and dogs have in previous eras and in other cultures been seen together quite often. OLD SCHOOL KIDLIT ABOUT GIRLS AND THEIR LOVE FOR DOGS The 1940s gave us George and Timmy, though Enid Blyton
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Gender Inversion As Gags In Children’s Stories
There’s this gag in many humorous children’s stories which almost everyone else finds hilarious and I find really troublesome. It’s when a male character dresses as a female character. This gender inversion in itself is meant to be funny. But why?
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More! by Peter Schossow Picture Book Analysis
Peter Schossow’s picture book More! is wordless in the same way Robert Redford’s All Is Lost is wordless: Both contain one spoken word, imbued with huge weight accordingly. Gecko Press brought this book from German to English in 2010, and have also translated another of Schossow’s works: My First Car Was Red. Even a ‘wordless’ picture
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A Squash And A Squeeze Analysis by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler Analysis
A Squash and a Squeeze is a 1993 picture book written by Julia Donaldson, illustrated by Axel Sheffler. The plot is very old. A Squash and a Squeeze was published in 1993, when Donaldson was 44. It was not expected to be a big seller. For one thing, it was in rhyme, which publishers at
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The Story About Ping Picture Book Study Analysis
Despite the Chinese setting, the author of The Story About Ping (1933) is American, born on Long Island, in fact. I’m reminded of the work of Margaret Wise Brown in that both Wise Brown and Marjorie Flack had the uncanny knack of including the most unlikely details, which they somehow knew would appeal to young children.
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The Two Promises Of Picturebooks
According to Nancy Kress (author of the writing book Beginnings, Middles & Ends), every story makes two promises to the reader: 1. THE EMOTIONAL PROMISE Read this and you’ll be: Entertained Thrilled Scared Titillated Saddened Nostalgic Uplifted But always absorbed 2. THE INTELLECTUAL PROMISE Read this and you’ll see the world from a different perspective
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Clifford The Big Red Dog by Norman Bridwell Analysis
Clifford The Big Red Dog is a picture book series by Norman Bridwell. This is an enormous franchise of children’s books which covers every generic, American childhood event you could imagine: Clifford’s First Christmas, The Big Sleepover, Clifford’s First School Day and so on. Bridwell died fairly recently, in 2014 at the age of 86.
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Roald Dahl: The Man Behind The Books
I remember the day Roald Dahl died. I was in Year 7. I remember sitting at my desk, and where that desk was positioned in the classroom, thinking about how Roald Dahl had died. Australian author Paul Jennings describes the time he met Roald Dahl. In Untwisted, [Jennings’ autobiography] he recounts the experience of meeting
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The Biggest Sandwich Ever Analysis
The Biggest Sandwich Ever is a book from 1980. It was my first “Lucky Book Club” purchase, and I loved it. (I don’t agree with my husband either, who says there should also be an “Unlucky Book Club”.) What makes it great? It’s not especially original, but it does follow a successful formula. Although the
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Tomboys vs Girly-girls In Middle Grade Novels
Laura and Mary Ingalls Georg(ina) and Anne Ramona and Beezus/Susan Kushner Bean and Ivy Clementine and Margaret Junie B. and Tattletale May/Richie Lucille Each of these pairs represents a perceived dichotomy of girlhood: the girly girl versus the “tomboy”. While I use the word “tomboy”, the speech marks indicate my disdain for the very concept. A girl who likes rough-and-tumble and
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The Frog Prince Fairytale Analysis
This famous tale is also known as The Princess And The Frog, The Frog Prince, A Frog For A Husband and similar variants. In most of these stories the princess is depicted as a spoilt brat. Sometimes the story goes so far as being called The Kind Stepdaughter And The Frog, which is actually more