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A Couple Of Boys Have The Best Week Ever by Marla Frazee Picture Book Analysis
A Couple Of Boys Have The Best Week Ever (2008), written and illustrated by Marla Frazee, was a Caldecott Honor book and garnered starred reviews from the big hitters. Today I’m taking a close look at what makes this book so good. A PICTURE BOOK FOR PICTURE BOOK ENTHUSIASTS It starts with the cover. This…
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Emotions In Children’s Literature
There are many things that date a children’s book — racism, sexism and other -isms are widely discussed and relatively easy to pick. I know that when I re-read Enid Blyton or almost anything from The First Golden Age of Children’s Literature these things stick in my craw. Other aspects are a little more subtle.…
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Individuality, The One True Self and Social Norms In Literature
What is ‘the self’? Is it not possible that the rage for confession, autobiography, especially for memories of earliest childhood, is explained by our persistent yet mysterious belief in a self which is continuous and permanent; which, untouched by all we acquire and all we shed, pushes a green spear through the dead leaves and…
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The Hundred Dresses by Eleanor Estes Novel Study
The Hundred Dresses is a middle grade American novel by Eleanor Estes, first published 1944. I consider this story a children’s literature sister of Katherine Mansfield’s short story “The Doll’s House“. The Hundred Dresses remains resonant with young readers today, and is happily still in print after winning a Newbery Honor. (The medal was awarded…
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The Pearl by John Steinbeck
“The Pearl” is a novella by John Steinbeck, first published hot on the heels of the second world war. The story is a re-visioning of a Mexican folktale, sometimes called a parable. This story is widely studied in American high schools so much has been posted elsewhere about symbolism and themes. My focus is on…
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Cortes Island by Alice Munro Short Story Analysis
“Cortes Island” is a short story by Alice Munro, included in the 2013 collection The Love Of A Good Woman, which won the Nobel Prize in Literature. Like another story in this collection, “Jakarta“, the title of this story is set in a place away from where the action takes place. Writers often say that…
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Jakarta by Alice Munro Short Story Analysis
“Jakarta” is a short story by Alice Munro, the second in the Nobel Prize winning collection The Love Of A Good Woman (1998). At first it baffles me why this story is called Jakarta as it is not set in Indonesia. Eventually we find out that one of the characters has previously died in Jakarta…
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The Three Types of Symbolism
Ah, symbolism. A key to understanding texts. Also immensely irritating, and an excellent way to alienate keen readers from the close reading of texts.
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Body Swap Stories
Body swap stories are as ancient as story itself. Take the British folk tale The Witch-hare of Cleveland. A local witch tells some farmers where to find a hare they can hunt, but warns them not to set a black dog on it. They set a black dog on it, of course. That’s how fairytales…
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Out-of-character Moments In Fiction
What does it mean to act ‘out-of-character’? I mean, they’re fictional, right? However they act must be who they are. Yet audiences and critics will sometimes feel that a fictional creation is acting out of character. Writers are always worried about moments that are ‘out of character,’ but everyone does things where you wonder ‘where…
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Who’s-Dead McCarthy by Kevin Barry Analysis
In the short story “Who’s-Dead McCarthy“, Irish short story writer Kevin Barry takes someone’s darkly morbid fascination with death and exaggerates it in a story-length character sketch — a man who talks about death so incessantly that people cross the road to avoid him. It’s wonderful. I think humour only ever exists in something that…
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Sucker by Carson McCullers
“Sucker” has been called Carson McCullers’ ‘apprentice story’. It is thought that the young cousin in this short story is the precursor to Bubber Kelly in The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter. Written at the age of seventeen, McCullers naturally demonstrated more sophisticated writing later on, though I believe this is still a great story…
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Zoomorphism and Chremamorphism
Both personification and anthropomorphism are types of metaphors. But what do you call it when it’s the other way round? i.e., when a human being is compared to an animal by virtue of animal characteristics?
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Mercy Watson Thinks Like A Pig by Kate diCamillo Analysis
Kate diCamillo’s Mercy Watson series are genius examples of funny, endearing, broad-audience picture books. There’s so much to learn. Today I take a deep dive into Mercy Watson Thinks Like A Pig. Eugenia and Baby Lincoln may live next door to a pig, but that doesn’t stop them from living a gracious life. And the…