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Old Mother Frost Fairy Tale Analysis
Old Mother Frost” is a German fairy tale also known as “Mother Holle”, “Mother Hulda” and “Frau Holle”.
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Pitschi by Hans Fischer (1948)
Pitschi is a picture book written and illustrated by Swiss storyteller Hans Fischer, first published in 1948. Pitschi is a good example of a post war children’s book: dangerously cosy with a stay at home message.
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Miss Rumphius by Barbara Cooney Analysis
Miss Rumphius by Barbara Cooney (1982) is a beautiful picture book with a gentle message encouraging children to create beauty in the world. Cooney’s art is a mixture of full-bleed landscapes and spot illustration.
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The Little Governess by Katherine Mansfield Short Story Analysis
Katherine Mansfield wrote. It’s a cautionary tale without the Perrault didacticism. It’s Little Red Riding Hood, but social realism. This story exists to say, “You’re not alone.” It’s a gendered story, about the specifically femme experience of being alone in public space. Some critics find the ending inadequate. This is a stellar example of a lyrical short story with emotional…
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Tricks by Alice Munro Short Story Analysis
I have a soft spot for short stories about spinsters about town, enjoying their passions in solitary fashion. “Tricks” by Alice Munro calls to mind Katherine Mansfield’s “Miss Brill”, especially after mention of the symbolic scarf: Miss Brill, you may recall, wears a fur. Robin of Munro’s story “Tricks” does not; she is instead disturbed by someone else’s fox scarf…
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A Rose For Emily by William Faulkner Short Story Analysis
“A Rose For Emily” is a short story by Mississippi born William Faulkner, first published 1930. I didn’t know of the short story when I listened to the podcast Shit Town.
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A Dictionary of Witch Words
The definition of witch changes over time. The word witch dates from around 800 AD. It originally referred to men who practise witchcraft but 200 years later referred to female magicians and sorceresses. Later it meant women who were meant to cooperate with the devil or other evil spirits.
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Miss Brill by Katherine Mansfield Short Story Analysis
“Miss Brill” is a short story by Katherine Mansfield, written 1920, three years before she died. The emotional valence of “Miss Brill” is similar to that in “Bliss“. In both stories, a young woman starts off happy but then an unwelcome Anagnorisis sends her plunging into a downcast mood. In both stories, the reader must […]
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Baba Yaga: Witch or old woman?
Baba Yaga is a legendary Slavic witch, or a hag, who lives in a hut that stands on chicken legs and who flies through the air in a mortar.
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In The Middle Of The Night by Robert Cormier
In The Middle Of The Night is a young adult horror novel by American author Robert Cormier. Written in the mid 1990s, this was one of his later works.
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Witches In Children’s Literature
The Weirdness Of Using Witches In Modern Entertainment Witches are female equivalent of storybook pirates in that the character is based on something very real and disturbing. I’d like to append ‘in our past’ but very disturbingly, It’s 2013 And They’re Burning Witches. See also: Woman Brutally Murdered in Papua New Guinea After Being Accused of Sorcery, from […]
