Didactic Monstrosity and Postmodern Revisionism in Contemporary Children’s Films

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter C. Kunze
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Mutual Understanding ◽  
Narrative Construction ◽  
Children's Books ◽  
Children’S Books ◽  
Children's Films ◽  
New Millennium

Peter C. Kunze investigates films for children that engage elements of horror, concentrating on the intersection between postmodernism and children’s cinema. Closely examining two films in which the monstrous is a key aspect of the films’ aesthetic, Shrek and Monsters, Inc., Kunze examines the postmodern aspects of these films, considering their revisionary stance, their use of double address, and their allusive nature. As the essay progresses, he hones in on the narrative construction of the monster in these films and the processes by which they revise monstrosity. Kunze demonstrates, overall, that these films illustrate for the child viewer “the benefits of confronting the Other not to destroy it, but to appreciate it and work towards mutual understanding” and offers a useful methodology for thinking about the monster in children’s books and films targeted toward the young that have been produced during the new millennium.

scholarly journals Proverbs and Idioms in Children's Books

2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (12) ◽  
pp. 8
Author(s):  
Zeynel Hayran
Keyword(s):  
Elementary School ◽  
Elementary School Students ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
The Other ◽  
Children's Books ◽  
Children’S Books ◽  
Human Relations ◽  
School Students ◽  
Idiomatic Expressions ◽  
Document Review

In this study, it was searched for the extent to which proverbs and idioms were included in the children's books that were taught to elementary school students. Children's books which are taught at the stage of children's vocabulary enriched rapidly and significantly, present the vocabulary of the mother tongue and its universe of meaning to a child. The richness of a vocabulary provides superiority to the students in terms of human relations and their learning. Proverbs which are one of the elements that constitute the vocabulary of Turkish; are concise words that reflect society's wisdom, experiences, and expression power; idioms, on the other hand, are a stereotyped phrase which states a concept or a situation with an attractive narrative and which also has a side meaning. The method of this study is to document review. Within the scope of the study, children's books that are taught to elementary school students are described in terms of their use of proverbs and idiomatic expressions. The results obtained from the research are discussed in the light of literature, and suggestions for the researchers, teachers and authors are presented with the collected findings.

scholarly journals Uchodźcy u „bram Europy”. Na Lampedusie Jarosława Mikołajewskiego

2021 ◽  
pp. 213-229
Author(s):  
Karolina Najgeburska ◽  
Keyword(s):  
High Tide ◽  
The Other ◽  
Refugee Crisis ◽  
Children's Books ◽  
Children’S Books ◽  
The Impact

The article discusses the refugee crisis in Europe, which has come to be symbolized by an Italian island of Lampedusa. The author of the article analyses two pieces by Jarosław Mikołajewski, a reportage Wielki przypływ [Great high tide] and a children’s story Wędrówka Nabu [Nabu’s Wandering], and seeks the answers to the following questions. What image of Lampedusa emerges from the reportage? What is the impact of the refugee crisis upon the lives of its residents? And finally, what is their attitude to the Other? Following Mikołajewski’s thinking, the author reflects on the challenges that the immigrants “at the gates of Europe” pose. In her opinion, Mikołajewski’s stance is open and emphatic. The aim of introducing the theme of migrants into children’s books is to teach them to be responsible for others.

When the audience changes

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 242-260
Author(s):  
Marija Zlatnar Moe ◽  
Tanja Žigon
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Children's Books ◽  
Children’S Books ◽  
Language And Culture ◽  
Realistic Fiction ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Intended Reader ◽  
The One

Abstract Much is expected to change when a work of fiction is translated from one language and culture to another, but the intended reader is not. This paper deals with the issue of the change of the intended reader from adult to child/adolescent in translations of fiction from English into Slovene. The intended reader is most likely to change in translations of comics/cartoons, fantasy, and realistic fiction with child or animal protagonists. The reasons for the change can be both textual and extra-textual: on the one hand, books are categorized as children’s books by libraries, award boards and marketers, as well as by the publisher’s choice of translator, while, on the other hand, individual translation decisions on the microlevel can help move a book from one category to another.

Through the Looking Glass: Children’s Books on Screen

2019 ◽  
pp. 76-123
Author(s):  
Casie E. Hermansson
Keyword(s):  
Harry Potter ◽  
Film Adaptations ◽  
Children's Books ◽  
Children’S Books ◽  
Moving Image ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Mise En Scene ◽  
Children's Films ◽  
Looking Glass

This chapter focuses on children’s films that depict ‘bookishness,’ both in adaptation and otherwise, to develop a ‘grammar’ of film techniques for doing so (as shown in mise en scène, editing, cinematography). This chapter uses many examples to illustrate that children’s film effectively employs a wide range of techniques for showing ‘bookish’ plots, characters, setting, themes, and symbols. These techniques are fruitfully employed in film adaptations of metafictions at the story level. Techniques discussed include title cards, intertitles, and subtitles; opening (with) the book; voicing the narrator; thematised readers and writers; embedding the book’s story; the lap dissolve; shifts from still to moving image; and metaphors for metalepsis (windows and mirrors). The chapter further discusses ekphrasis and shows how the interpretant functions. The chapter presents a case study on Harry Potter books 2 and 6, and their film adaptations: The Chamber of Secrets, and The Half-Blood Prince.

‘Here in India’: Nineteenth-Century British Women Navigating their Position in the Empire through Children's Literature

2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 173-185
Author(s):  
Jesse Aberbach
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Children’S Literature ◽  
Infants And Children ◽  
Children's Books ◽  
Children’S Books ◽  
Maternal Roles ◽  
Female Writers ◽  
And Control ◽  
Botanical Study

This article considers how the children's books written by two nineteenth-century female writers, Eliza Tabor and Mary Martha Sherwood, when they accompanied their husbands to India, enabled them to navigate this new environment and their position as respectable middle-class women while revealing how India was deemed a place where British childhood was impossible. Just as many women took up botanical study to legitimise their ‘otherwise transgressive presence in imperial spaces’ (McEwan 219), writing for children enabled others to engage with the masculine world of travelling and earning money without compromising their femininity. Addressing their work to children also seems to have helped both writers to deal with the absence of their own children: the Indian climate made it impossibly challenging for most British infants and children. In this way their writing gives expression to what might be termed a crisis of imperial motherhood. Underlying the texts is an anxiety relating to British settlement and an attempt to comprehend and control a place that threatened their maternal roles.

The Adult as Foe or Friend?: Childism in Guus Kuijer's Criticism and Fiction

2013 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 205-217 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vanessa Joosen
Keyword(s):  
Children's Literature ◽  
Children’S Literature ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Children's Books ◽  
Children’S Books ◽  
Memorial Award ◽  
Adult Reader ◽  
Shed Light ◽  
Selection Of

Compared to the attention that children's literature scholars have paid to the construction of childhood in children's literature and the role of adults as authors, mediators and readers of children's books, few researchers have made a systematic study of adults as characters in children's books. This article analyses the construction of adulthood in a selection of texts by the Dutch author and Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award winner Guus Kuijer and connects them with Elisabeth Young-Bruehl's recent concept of ‘childism’ – a form of prejudice targeted against children. Whereas Kuijer published a severe critique of adulthood in Het geminachte kind [The despised child] (1980), in his literary works he explores a variety of positions that adults can take towards children, with varying degrees of childist features. Such a systematic and comparative analysis of the way grown-ups are characterised in children's texts helps to shed light on a didactic potential that materialises in different adult subject positions. After all, not only literary and artistic aspects of children's literature may be aimed at the adult reader (as well as the child), but also the didactic aspect of children's books can cross over between different age groups.

Life in the Open with Charles Frederick Holder

2014 ◽  
Vol 96 (2) ◽  
pp. 206-221
Author(s):  
Jane Apostol
Keyword(s):  
Natural Science ◽  
Children's Books ◽  
Children’S Books ◽  
Sport Fishing ◽  
Prolific Author ◽  
Natural Scientist ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Santa Catalina Island

Natural scientist Charles Frederick Holder settled in Pasadena in 1885. As a prolific author, lecturer, and editor, Holder was a key promoter of the region, sport fishing, and natural science. He wrote popular children’s books as well. He is also remembered as an influential figure in education and the arts and as a founder of the Tuna Club on Santa Catalina Island and the Valley Hunt Club in Pasadena and its Tournament of Roses.

A content analysis of gender representation in Malaysian children's literature

2008 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 49
Author(s):  
Ramesh Nair
Keyword(s):  
Content Analysis ◽  
Children's Literature ◽  
English Language ◽  
Children’S Literature ◽  
Children's Books ◽  
Children’S Books ◽  
Minor Characters ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Mental Schemas ◽  
Selection Of

Children's literature serves as a powerful medium through which children construct messages about their roles In society and gender Identity is often central to this construction. Although possessing mental schemas about gender differences is helpful when children organize their ideas of the world around them, problems occur when children are exposed to a constant barrage of uncompromising, gender-schematic sources that lead to stereotyping which in turn represses the full development of the child. This paper focuses on how gender is represented in a selection of Malaysian children's books published in the English language. Relying on the type of content analysis employed by previous feminist social science researchers, I explore this selection of Malaysian children's books for young children and highlight some areas of concern with regard to the construction of maleness and femaleness in these texts. The results reveal Imbalances at various levels Including the distribution of main, supporting and minor characters along gendered lines and the positioning of male and female characters In the visual Illustrations. The stereotyping of these characters In terms of their behavioural traits will be discussed with the aim of drawing attention to the need for us to take concerted measures to provide our children with books that will help them realize their potential to the fullest.

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