-
Garth Pig And The Ice Cream Lady By Mary Rayner
Garth Pig and the Ice Cream Lady is a British picture book written and illustrated by Mary Rayner in 1977. The story is part fairytale, part 1977 modernity. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Mary Rayner was born in 1933 in Mandalay, Burma of British parents. She was 8 years old when Japanese troops invaded Burma. Her mother…
-
River Symbolism In Storytelling
here there is a river there is symbolism. At least, in stories. The nature of rivers also differs between cultures.
-
Doctor De Soto by William Steig (1982) Analysis
Doctor De Soto is an example of a picture book that owes a lot to Aesop, with the characterisation of the mice and the fox already firmly in place. Mice don’t play as prominent part in the fables as you might think, but foxes are one of the main five, along with countrymen, dogs, donkeys…
-
Symbolism Of The Forest In Storytelling
Be it woods or forest, when a character enters the trees in fiction, beware! We learned this from fairytales, but is fear of the forest innate, or taught to us via fiction?
-
Hygge is the word English needs to describe children’s literature
Danes are scratching their heads about why an everyday word they’ve been using privately for generations is suddenly taking the English-speaking world by storm.
-
Storybook Farms
Farms in children’s literature are often a kind of utopia. Often these are animal utopias, and the reader is not supposed to even think of what the animals are really there for. Writing of the book Hepzibah Hen, a Children’s Hour favourite from 1926, is described by Margaret Blount as ‘the antithesis of Animal Farm‘,…
-
The Three Little Pigs Illustrated by Leonard Leslie Brooke Fairy Tale Analysis
The Three Little Pigs is one of the handful of classic tales audiences are expected to know. Pigs are handy characters: They can be adorable or they can be evil. You can strip them butt naked and let the reader revel in their uncanny resemblance to humans. Or, you can dress them in jumpers and they’re…
-
Why children’s stories have to be dual audience now
Modern children’s books — picture books in particular — are required to appeal to adults as well as to children. This is known as a ‘dual audience’ story.
-
The Girl Title Trend In Children’s Books
The girl title trend in publishing is interesting because it is popular despite some pushback against using the word ‘girl’ to refer to grown-ass women. Author Emily St John Mandel wrote this week about why so much of the bestselling fiction this year has ‘girl’ in the title. Those are my takeaway points but the entire article…
-
If I Stay by Gayle Forman Storytelling Tips
If I Stay by Gayle Foreman is a young adult novel published 2009. This book is beautifully plotted, and makes an excellent case study if writers are planning a story with an ‘alternating’ plot. WELCOME TO THE THIRD GOLDEN AGE This book is an excellent example of ‘The Third Golden Age Of Children’s Literature’, as described by…
-
The Male Gaze In Children’s Literature
Meg Elison has written a McSweeneys post about The Gaze which strikes a chord. IF WOMEN WROTE MEN THE WAY MEN WRITE WOMEN. At The Guardian, Lindesay Irvine (incidentally, a man) responded to this spoof gender reversal with: Anyone who’s ever had a brush with cultural studies will be familiar with Laura Mulvey’s influential theory…
-
A Very Brief History Of Science Fiction
WHAT IS SCIENCE FICTION? Along with fantasy, horrors and Westerns, science fiction is one of the highly metaphorical categories of story. THE UNIVERSAL EPIC Science Fiction is about human evolution, literally the universal epic. Science fiction stories often use the myth form, not only because myth is about the journey but also because myth is…
-
Rats In Children’s Literature
I’m reminded of modern children’s literature, in which an underdog, much maligned character has his/her own back. It’s pretty funny until you read the top commenter, pointing out that the rat probably has toxoplasmosis, a disorder of the brain. On the other hand, mice and rats alike aren’t timid at all when you consider how small…
-
Pig Tale by Helen Oxenbury (1973) Analysis
Pig Tale is a 1973 picture book by Helen Oxenbury. I’ve already taken a close look at The Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig, which is one of my favourite picturebooks of all time. That was written by Eugene Trivizas and illustrated by Helen Oxenbury, probably because she already had a reputation for…