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Teach With Picturebooks
What’s true of short stories is true of picture books: You should read short stories because each one will give you the full narrative hit—beginning, middle and end—in double-quick time. You’ll get all—well, most of—the satisfaction of a novel, in one small package that might use up 15–20 minutes of your time. Short Stories and
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Millie by John Marsden and Sally Rippin Analysis
Young readers love to hear about naughty children. If this were a story by Roald Dahl or Edward Gorey, the naughty Millie would definitely have met a nasty end, but this particular naughty child remains the apple of her parents’ eyes. Since all children have bad thoughts sometimes, this story is a comfort-read, and would
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Picturebooks: Where to place words on the page?
Where to put the text in a picture book? How do the eyes of readers move across the page? What is the age of your reader? This will affect the decision.
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Wolf Comes To Town by Denis Manton Analysis
Wolf Comes To Town by Denis Manton must be one of the most underrated children’s book on the Internet. I was genuinely astonished to check out what others have said about this picture book on Amazon and Goodreads. Both sites show a 1.5 star average rating at time of writing. Can you guess what reviewers don’t like…
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Differences Between Writing For Children and Adults
1. What can I expect of children whose understanding of language is not yet nearly as well developed as my own adult linguistic skills, without asking too much of them? 2. What ought I to expect of children without contravening educational, psychological, moral and aesthetic requirements, particularly since it is not always easy to bring
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Out Now: A Lady’s Visit to the Gold Diggings of Australia in 1852-53
At the age of 22, a genteel young woman sailed with her older brother from England to Australia, where they hoped to make their fortune… or at least have an adventure. Although their father was a well-off clergyman, he was consistently in debt, and his six children would therefore need to find their own means
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Wheat in the Ear by Alien
I considered recording this New Zealand classic as an audiobook, and set about simplifying the text for a contemporary listening audience–and also, to help myself concentrate on it. But I gave up the idea. I’m not sufficiently in love with it. However, it’s still interesting to read some 1800s Aotearoa melodrama. Below you’ll find the
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The Castaways of Disappointment Island
In the 1970s and 80s, Ōtautahi Christchurch was home to a small publishing company called Capper Press. They reprinted significant cultural New Zealand works, and The Castaways of Disappointment Island was one of them. My pop, himself a Southlander born in the 1920s, had grown up with this story, and was very pleased to get
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The Symbolism of Tea in Literature
COLONISATION AND IMPERIALISM Get Out (2017), a film by Jordan Peele An Australian example: “We were slaves to white families,” she said. Aunty Lorraine worked as a servant in rural New South Wales, from age 15. “The final part of your training was how to serve high tea to white families that you going to
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Disgust
Why would a storyteller or artist want to elicit disgust in their work? And if they want to do it, how do they typically do it?
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Writing Consumer Book Reviews
What is the function of consumer reviews? Should we feel bad for posting negative takes on other people’s books? Do consumer reviews have a real impact on sales? To what extent? Is a review a work of art in its own right?
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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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Overcoming Perfectionism
Perfectionism can be a superpower but can hinder us in getting things done. Framing perfectionism as fear is one way to harness it.
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Evangelical Christianity: Non-mainstream concepts
Aotearoa New Zealand elected an Evangelical Christian Prime Minister. Relying on stats a decade old, in 2013, there were only 15,000 evangelical Christians in a population of 4.4 million (~0.34%).
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Material by Alice Munro Short Story Analysis
“Material” is a short story by Canadian author Alice Munro. Find it in Something I’ve Been Meaning To Tell You (1974