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Young Adult And Middle Grade Books With Trans Feminine Characters
Young adult readers can now find better queer diversity scattered across young adult literature. Many of these new stories feature trans masculine characters. Here are some young adult stories featuring trans feminine characters.
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Of Mice and Men: Classroom Alternatives
Of Mice and Men is a 1937 novella by John Steinbeck. Two migrant ranch workers move from place to place in California looking for work during America’s Great Depression. This social protest novel is widely studied with high school English literature students. But, where funding allows, English teachers are starting to replace class sets Of […]
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Children’s Fiction Based On The Odyssey
There are three main types of modern myth, and by ‘modern’ I mean ‘3000 years old’. In one type the main character hangs around home base (e.g. an island). This type of myth is known as a Robinsonnade. Another much newer type is the so-called Female Myth, in which the main character (of any gender) […]
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The Tricksters by Margaret Mahy Young Adult Novel Study
The Tricksters is a young adult novel by New Zealand author Margaret Mahy, first published in 1986. Mahy wrote many stories for children, but The Tricksters seems to be one frequently talked about in scholarship circles, alongside The Changeover and The Haunting, which both won The Carnegie Medal. The Tricksters is a rare example of the new female mythic form,…
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Tomorrow When The War Began Questions
The following are some resources I used with New Zealand high school English students some years ago during a novel study of Tomorrow When The War Began by John Marsden. Posted here in case anyone still finds this useful. How many wars has New Zealand been involved in during the last 50 years? The Cold […]
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American Honey Film Study
American Honey, directed by Andrea Arnold, is the granddaughter of Thelma and Louise — a road journey with classic mythic structure which follows the coming-of-age (or not) of an 18-year-old named Star.
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The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier Novel Study
The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier was not written with a young adult audience in mind, but class sets of the book found their way into English departments all over the world. Though this is not my favourite Cormier novel, it remains his best known. Heavy in symbolism and discussable themes, The Chocolate War also makes for […]
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Illness and Disability in Children’s Literature
The United States has always been a terrible place to be sick and disabled. Ableism is baked into our myths of bootstrapping and self-reliance, in which health is virtue and illness is degeneracy. Madeline Miller Illness, disability and disfigurement has a problematic history in children’s literature. What are the main problems, today and in the […]
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The End Of The Fxxxing World Storytelling
Listed on IMDb as a comedy drama, The End Of The Fxxxing World is a darkly comic coming-of-age tale with a major crime at the centre of the plot. It is also a twisted and cynical romance. The script is written by Charlie Covell, based on the graphic novel by Charles Forsman. Forsman is an American […]
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Lady Bird Film Study
Lady Bird is an American coming-of-age film written and directed by Greta Gerwig, who won a bunch of awards for it. I can see why.
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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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We Are The Best (2013) Storytelling
We Are The Best is a Swedish film adaptation of Coco Moodysson’s (director Moodysson’s wife’s) autobiographical graphic novel which she never completely finished. PREMISE OF WE ARE THE BEST Three girls in 1980s Stockholm decide to form a punk band — despite not having any instruments and being told by everyone that punk is dead. STORY […]
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Me and Earl and the Dying Girl (2015) Novel Study
Me And Earl And The Dying Girl is a metafictive coming-of-age film based on a young adult novel by the same name. The book is an example of ‘sick-lit‘. Greg […] is coasting through senior year of high school as anonymously as possible, avoiding social interactions like the plague while secretly making spirited, bizarre films […]
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Storytelling Tips From Kings Of Summer (2013)
Sometimes when you find out a story used to be called something different right up until the marketing team stepped in, the original name can offer extra insight. Kings of Summer was originally called “Toy’s House”. The main character is called Joe Toy, and I did spend a bit of time wondering if this is a symbolic […]
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The Edge Of Seventeen Film Study
The Edge of Seventeen is a coming-of-age movie about an American girl called Nadine who struggles to fit in. That could describe many of us in our teen years, but with Nadine there’s a bit more to it. STORY STRUCTURE OF THE EDGE OF SEVENTEEN The film opens to a witty, high stakes dialogue scene […]