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Diary Of A Wimpy Kid And The Buddy Comedy
Jeff Kinney’s Diary Of A Wimpy Kid was first published in 2004. The twelfth in the series is due November 2017. Kinney originally planned ten, unless the quality dropped off. At this point he plans to continue indefinitely, so long as they’re still popular. Television tie-ins, film versions and highly illustrated diaries of the Wimpy Kid ilk…
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Bad Guys by Aaron Blabey Novel Study
Bad Guys is a bestselling Australian early reader by Australian author and illustrator Aaron Blabey. The Bad Guys series is frequently recommended for kids who enjoy Diary of a Wimpy Kid, The Treehouse series, stories by David Walliams, Ahn Do Weirdo, the Real Pigeons series, Minecraft Zombie books and other children’s books parents can find…
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Miles City, Montana by Alice Munro Short Story Analysis
“Miles City, Montana” is a short story by Alice Munro, and first appeared in the January 14, 1985 edition of The New Yorker.
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How To Write A Hate Sink Character
There are certain character traits which audiences universally dislike. When they appear in fiction, audiences understand ‘this is the character I’m supposed to hate’. This character is called the Hate Sink. I have previously explored how writers create unlikeable but sympathetic characters. There is a list of tricks which have been utilised by storytellers to…
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Excess, Hyperbole and Pestilence In Illustration
We love stories of excess. examples of excess and visual hyperbole can be seen all across children’s literature. Literally any item can be turned into a visual gag by creating a large number of it.
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A Brief History of Road Trip Stories
Road trip stories are basically mythic journeys. Usually, a group of friends or family are travelling together instead of alone. As well as meeting a succession of opponents along the way they argue among themselves. The Minotaur opponent who comes in from outside either binds them together or (in a tragedy) drives them apart. Occasionally…
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How To Write A Likeable Main Character
Must characters in stories be likeable? No. Are unlikeable characters popular with audiences? Yes. But they’re harder to write. They need to be all of the things listed below and then some. Some characters in some stories shouldn’t be likeable. But what if you want to create a genuinely likeable main character who appeals to…
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The Ideology Of Wealth In Stories
Wealth brings out the worst in people. This is the overriding message we get from stories in general, be they for children or adults. However, sometimes by working hard a hero can become rich. In a Cinderella story goodness leads naturally to riches. This is thought to be Cinderella’s rightful place — after all, Cinderella…
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The Love Of A Good Woman by Alice Munro Short Story Analysis
“The Love Of A Good Woman” by Alice Munro is the title story in the collection which won the Nobel Prize in Literature, 2013. It’s a long short story — about 70 pages. We might even call it a novella, though let’s just go with this: The title story of Alice Munro’s collection, The Love…
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Unmentionable by Paul Jennings
Unmentionable (1991) is a collection of 9 hi-lo short stories by iconic Australian author Paul Jennings. STORY STRUCTURE OF “ICE MAIDEN” In “Ice Maiden”, a boy falls in love with an ice statue, but he gets over his love for the ice once he meets a real girl. I have some sympathy for the phenomenon…
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Poof and Worm-Hoop Part One
Poof The Old Lady is a graphic novel created by two neurodiverse ten-year-olds. The running gag is that an old lady by the name of Poof goes Poof! at the end of each story. But she comes alive before the next. The creators are best friends at school, and they both like to read and…
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The Weirdness of Yotsuba&! by Kiyohiko Azuma
The other day someone in a book recommendation group wanted suggestions for a 10 year old who loves Hayao Miyazaki movies. This basically describes my own kid, who’s been a Miyazaki fan since the age of three, before she even knew transmogrification wasn’t a thing. My kid enjoys Yotsuba&! (among other things, so I recommended…
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Junie B. Jones and Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria
Rejection sensitive dysphoria is an unpleasant emotion which should be more widely known. Not many people know how it feels, and even fewer know what it’s called. But Barbara Park’s Junie B. Jones is an excellent fictional example of a character who lives with these hard emotions.
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Bullying In Children’s Literature
Aggressiveness is culturally induced: where it is not valued, it is not strong. Marilyn French “Middle school wasn’t much fun for me. We had some bullying going on, and the best thing to do was to stay out of their way.” Jeff Kinney, author of Diary Of A Wimpy Kid WHAT IS BULLYING? Bullying is…