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Burglar Bill by Janet and Allan Ahlberg Analysis
Burglar Bill is a picture book by Janet and Allan Ahlberg, first published in 1977. There are a number of picture books about burglars who break into houses at night, one of a child’s greatest fears going to sleep. Burglars can be found all across children’s literature. (Enid Blyton loved burglars.)
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Danny The Champion Of The World by Roald Dahl Novel Study
As an English speaking child of the 80s I grew up on a heavy diet of Roald Dahl. Danny The Champion Of The World (1975) stands out in my adult memory my favourite Dahl story, perhaps only bested by the frisson of horror left by The Witches (in which I actually examined my J2 teacher, thinking she might be a…
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Town Musicians Of Bremen Fairy Tale Analysis
“The Town Musicians Of Bremen” is a German folktale. Its plot structure is so strong that many storytellers writing series for children borrow it.
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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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Mercy Watson Fights Crime by Kate diCamillo Analysis
“Mercy Watson Fights Crime” is book number three in the Mercy Watson series by Kate diCamillo, first published 2006. This series is beautifully illustrated by Chris Van Dusen. SETTING OF MERCY WATSON FIGHTS CRIME Where in America is this series set? Based only on fictional representations, this feels Southern to me. (Do Americans get that? […]
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Ernestine and Kit by Kevin Barry Analysis
“Ernestine and Kit” is a short story by Kevin Barry, included in Dark Lies The Island (2013). It has been made into a short film by Simon Bird if you can get a hold of it. This is black humour at its best. I was captivated with this crime story from beginning to end — the […]
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A Good Man Is Hard To Find by Flannery O’Connor Short Story Analysis
“A Good Man Is Hard To Find” is a well-known short story by American writer Flannery O’Connor, published 1953. So much has already been said about this story — I will look into its structure from a plotting point of view. It’s also about time I read this story. Without reading Flannery O’Connor’s most famous […]
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Why Women Love True Crime
When I was in Form 2 (now called Year 8), our teacher set a transactional writing exercise: Does violent media make a culture more violent? I’d never heard of Rudine Sims Bishop who, five years earlier, in a different hemisphere, had been writing about how story functions as a mirror as well as a window, […]
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The Three Strangers by Thomas Hardy Short Story Study
“The Three Strangers” is a short story by Thomas Hardy, published as a serial in 1883. The story is set in 1820s pastoral England and is one of Hardy’s ‘Wessex Tales’. SETTING OF “THE THREE STRANGERS” Reading this story now, nigh on 200 years after it’s set, the setting of “The Three Strangers” feels almost […]
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The Murders In The Rue Morgue by Edgar Allan Poe Analysis
“The Murders In The Rue Morgue” by Edgar Allan Poe (1841) is thought to be the first modern detective story. (Well, Oedipus is sometimes considered the first one on record.) For me there is little interesting about this story, except for its influence on the crime genre. That in itself makes it worth reading. As […]
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Writing Detective Stories
A detective story is a type of mystery told through the eyes of law enforcers. Crime stories, in contrast, are often told through the eyes of the criminal. An example of a crime story is The Sopranos. Detective stories relate the solving of a crime, usually one or more murders, by a main character who […]
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The Killers by Ernest Hemingway Analysis
“The Killers” is a short story by Ernest Hemingway, first published 1927. Dorothy Parker goes on record as declaring “The Killers” the best short story of 1929.
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Stories We Tell About Women Who Kill Short Story Analysis
There is a strong audience for stories about women who kill men. Storytelling seems to be going through the Age of the Woman Killer right now, with the popularity of Dirty John (podcast and TV series) and a much publicised movie about the Lorena Bobbitt case, which originally happened in the early 1990s. On Netflix […]
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The Wamsutter Wolf by Annie Proulx Short Story Analysis
“The Wamsutter Wolf” by Annie Proulx is a short story included in the Bad Dirt collection (2004). The title of the collection comes from this story. SETTING OF “THE WAMSUTTER WOLF” This particular setting can be geolocated. Wamsutter is a town in Sweetwater County, Wyoming, United States. The population was 451 at the 2010 census. Wikipedia As of this […]
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The Woman At The Store by Katherine Mansfield Short Story Analysis
“The Woman At The Store” (1912) is one of Mansfield’s earlier stories, written for the magazine Rhythm. The aesthetic goal of this magazine was pity, brutality and a carefully wrought plot with adequate foreshadowing. It is now thought that this story is far from Mansfield’s best work. This short story has been criticised for its […]