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Gross-out Children’s Books
What Are Gross-out Books? Gross-out books are frequently classed as ‘trash‘ and rarely win the big awards, perhaps partly because they sell so well. Gross-out books fall into the category of ‘carnivalesque‘. In academic terms, these gross-out books might be called ‘carnivalesque-grotesque’. Carnivalesque-grotesque narratives directly address the personal and sociocultural anxieties induced by knowledge of…
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Men Reading Newspapers In Children’s Fiction
Boys studying for GCSEs were more likely than girls to read print products such as comics, with 38% saying they read newspapers at least once a month compared with 30% of girls of the same age. The Guardian In illustrations, men typically read newspapers. Women either read magazines, or busy themselves serving breakfast. The following…
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An Animal Gets Into Trouble And Out Again
Dogs (and wolves and foxes) are popular choices for protagonists in this sort of story, I suppose because dogs are inclined to get themselves into trouble. (Our own border collie is no exception.) But here we have a wide selection of animal spanning the categories of birds, insects and lesser-known mammals. This kind of story…
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Comparative Children’s Literature: Britain
Best Selling Children’s Books In Britain A.A. Milne’s Winnie-the-pooh stories in the 1920s Peter Pan, which few children find readable today, was the first novel in which ordinary children enter a magic world and have an adventure there – something that readers of Alice in Wonderland, The Chronicles of Narnia, Harry Potter and His Dark…
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Who Wants To Be A Poodle I Don’t by Lauren Child Analysis
Who Wants To Be A Poodle I Don’t is my favourite Lauren Child picture book. I can see it being used in the classroom to teach the concept of the leitmotif, among other things.
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How To Structure Any (Western-style) Story
Combining my study of film, novels, children’s literature and lyrical short stories, I’ve come up with a nine part story structure. Other cultures historically carve up stories differently. For instance, East Asian audiences expect different things from story, and also differ in the amount of work they expect to put in. Not all stories are…
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Composition In Film and In Picture books
Ah, composition. How things are arranged on the page… or on the screen. I have written before about how picture books have a lot in common with film, and that study of one equals study of the other.
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The Three Little Wolves And The Big Bad Pig by Eugene Trivizas and Helen Oxenbury Analysis
The Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pigs is not only an inversion on the classic tale, but also a subversion of the message. Basically, this is a fable for a rape culture world. PARATEXT Back in 1993, this book was a best seller and did well in a number of big prizes. Most of…
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Once by Morris Gleitzman (2006)
To celebrate the 10 year anniversary of Once by Maurice Gleitzman, an Australian middle grade novel by one of our best known children’s book authors, I’m going to take a close look at it using the 7-step story structure which applies to pretty much everything from advertisements to picture books to novels. The Redemptive Power…
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Thelma And Louise Story Structure
Thelma and Louise is an iconic 1991 film, hailed at the time as feminist. I don’t fall into the camp who consider this a feminist film, but it is still one of my all time favourites. I know Thelma and Louise so well it makes an excellent case study in storytelling technique. While I was…
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Gender Problems In ParaNorman (2012)
ParaNorman (2012) is an animated zombie flick, light-hearted in its intent, and follows the adventures of an outcast 11-year old called Norman, who sees dead people. They’re everywhere. I identify with Norman, I really do. These days, whenever I watch a kids’ film, all I see are anti-girl references and tropes. These tropes are like…
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Problems With The Redemption Story
According to Hayden White (American historian), The Redemption Story is one of the Four Grand Narratives of the West. (The others are Greek fatalism, bourgeois progressivism and Marxist utopianism.)
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Gilmore Girls and Modern Feminism
Why Fans Love Gilmore Girls A Fan’s Notes On Gilmore Girls from The Awl. Is it an UNDERRATED CLASSIC or did you see it when you were 14? Chris Schleicher (@cschleichsrun) November 18, 2020 Watching With Your Kids Here’s a good argument for watching Gilmore girls with your daughter even if you see problems with it.…
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Million Dollar Baby Film Study
Today is Curmudgeon’s Day, according to Twitter. (Un)happy Curmudgeon’s Day! In that spirit I will take a close look at a film in which a curmudgeonly old man learns to soften up with the help of an earnest and humble young woman. I first saw this film around the time Million Dollar Baby come out and…
