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My Summer Of Love Film Study
My Summer Of Love is a 2004 film based on a novel by Helen Cross set in 1984. If you’ve seen Peter Jackson’s Heavenly Creatures (1994), My Summer Of Love bears similarities: A relationship of romantic infatuation between two teenage girls from very different backgrounds. This film puts the relationship between the girls to the forefront, […]
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The Little Match Girl by Hans Christian Andersen
To a modern audience, The Little Match Girl is unbearably tragic. Perhaps, like me, you vividly recall reading your version of this story as a young kid and being profoundly affected. For me, it was probably the first time I considered the possibility of childhood death.
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Strays Like Us by Richard Peck Storytelling Tips
Strays Like Us is a 1998 middle grade novel by American author Richard Peck. (155 pages) Peck not only understands the fragile emotions of adolescents, he also knows what kind of characters will pique their interest. In this tender novel, he paints a richly detailed portrait of Molly, a drug-addict’s daughter sent at the age […]
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Rules Of Summer by Shaun Tan Analysis
On the surface, Shaun Tan’s award-winning picture book Rules Of Summer is simply a list of rules. Below I take a look at how Rules Of Summer is in fact a complete narrative.
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The Cosy House and Barn
Home is important to all of us and perhaps even more important to young readers. This is why the mythic journey when it occurs in children’s literature is more commonly known as the home-away-home story — unless a child moves house at the beginning of the story they most often explore alone for a while […]
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Storytelling Tips From Juno (2007)
I’m no great fan of many traditional rom-coms, but I do love this off-beat romantic comedy drama blend precisely because it takes the regular, conservative storyline of: mother almost loses her baby and then reunites (to live happily ever after), and the usual movie tropes (geek = Bleeker, but he’s also an athlete, stepmother is not […]
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Winnie The Pooh Novel Study
Winnie the Pooh is basically a modern version of an archetypal legend: The story of a peaceful animal kingdom ruled by a single benevolent human being. Like Adam, Christopher Robin gives names to his objects. The Pooh stories came at the very end of the First Golden Age Of Children’s Literature, as described by Peter […]