Children's Literature Flashcards
Elements of a storybook
Plot
- Conflict takes the form of a problem that the main character must resolve.
- Conflict can either be successfully resolved or unsolved, but the main character must grow or learn something from the process.
Theme
- Theme can be the moral of the story or an insight or viewpoint that the story conveys.
- Consider real-life situations as the basis when choosing a theme.
Character
- Anthropomorphism is common — the attribution of human form or behaviour to a deity or animal.
- Picture book writers need to have an empathy with young children and be able to retain and reproduce childhood feelings and experiences of what it is like to be small.
- Characters have one or more telling details — a physical trait, a mannerism, a favourite phrase. A complete description is not needed.
Anne of Green Gables vs Alice in Wonderland
In both Anne of Green Gables and Alice in Wonderland, the young girl protagonists are vivid dreamers with intense imaginative abilities far beyond the norm. The author has provided the characters with this quality as a tool for dealing with the many confusing and problematic situations they face as they grow into the mystifying world of maturity. Although the two girls face totally different sets of life circumstances, dreaming provides them both with a way of digesting and understanding the bombardment of information and insinuations of the adult world, of which children begin to become aware of at an early age.
In Anne’s case, her dreams are waking and deliberate, and serve as a means of survival in, what has been up until the story begins, an intolerable sequence of events. Alice, on the other hand, who lives a rather gifted life, “falls” into her dream experience without warning. She is subjected to a sequence of bizarre scenes and characters, all of which she has taken from her waking life, and stirred with her imagination in a sleep state.
Both Lewis Carroll, creator of “Alice,” and LM Montgomery, author of “Anne, “ lived during a time when a good child was one who strictly adhered to the rules of the home and church. Well-behaved children, especially girls, were not allowed to roughhouse or freely express themselves. Manners and etiquette were primary significant pieces of the educational process. Lewis Carroll, (actually Charles Dodgson) born in 1832, was fond of children, and was not prone to “put away childish things”(Carroll v). An Oxford math professor, he spent his free time with children, particularly girls, telling stories and taking photographs of them. A favorite of Carroll’s, Alice Liddell, was part of a wealthy, proper family, as reflected in her character in both Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. What may lie behind Carroll’s fantasy written for Alice, is the rather boring, staid and restrained life she lives, being a child of privilege, as reflected in Through the Looking Glass.
. LM Montgomery, creator of Anne of Green Gables, is a woman of more simple background, living on beautiful Prince Edward Island in Canada. Although there is not great wealth in the society in which she is a part, the morals and rules are the same for children, including her character, Anne, whose background is one of unfortunate poverty. Montgomery brings Anne into her story, already an idealist as well as an intense daydreamer. The almost ridiculous personality Montgomery attributes to Alice is one that keeps Alice from falling into negativity and sadness over her things she cannot control. Although Montgomery makes Anne’s descriptive ramblings extreme, they develop a character who had very little to work with, and provide her with channel for growing into adulthood.
Anne Shirley, in Anne of Green Gables, is possibly the most difficult character to analyze in terms of her dream life. Anne has suffered the loss of her parents and of being moved from one foster home to another. She helped raise two sets of twins, and has carried responsibility far beyond her age range.
As Alice moves through Wonderland, she challenges social conventions and redefines her relationship to authority. Like Alice, Anne deconstructs behavioural codes and exacts positive change from her community. With a vivid imagination and limitless energy, Anne contests the limited perspectives of her caretakers and friends, inspiring transformation and growth in the suffiest of her elders.
Anne is guided by her imagination and romanticism, which often lead her astray. Daydreams constantly interrupt her chores and conversations, pulling her away from reality and into her own imaginary world.
Limerick Format
- AABBA
- Lines 1,2,5 rhyme and have same number of syllables (8 or 9)
- Lines 3,4 rhyme and have same number of syllables (5 or 6)
- Limericks often start with the line “There once was a…” or “There was a…”
Canadian Elements
Issues:
- Post-secondary education cost
- Environmental issues
- Healthcare
- Aboriginal culture in general (history of mistreatment)
- Consumeristic society
- Quebec separatism
Disneyfication
- A term used to look at the way in which stories are moulded to tell an animated film.
- Ultimately, it has become a commercial enterprise, a mechanism for making money rather than for education and the sole purpose of telling stories.
- Disney has taken beloved fairytales and made them into films to make a profit.
- Highlights the idea of needing ‘man’.
- Disney often creates new characters.
- Continuation of body image issues, highlighted in most Disney stories.
- All boil down to one story — a young person who yearns form more in life, breaks away from the disapproving parents, encouraged by a couple of wacky sidekicks, faces adventure, finds a love interest, confronts a villain, and lives happily ever after, all followed by song and dance.
- Villains being portrayed are not everyday, normal people and that is not true in life.
Dr. Seuss
The Cat in the Hat
- Homage to Sigmund Freud
- Abandonment by mother
- Cat = ID - Fish = Christ Figure
- Lard red crate = Pandora’s Box (represents lack of control we human beings have) - Cleanup machine = element of therapy (psychoanalysis)
Green Eggs and Ham (1960)
- Reflects political issues at the time — 1960’s
- Conservative (older unnamed guy) VS. Liberal (Sam)
- Conflict between the two
- Green eggs and hams represent the liberal ideas
- Conservative needs Liberals to help
- Very political in nature
- Acceptance by the end, representative of the empty plate
The Lorax
- Seuss classified this story as propaganda
- A cautionary fable
- Pathos and guilt
- Controversial with the timber industry
Prejudice and Discrimination
- Interest in social injustice stems from his adolescence
- Picked on his religion and ethnicity
- Yertle the Turtle — Hitler
- The Sneetches — opposition to anti-Semitism
- The Who’s — symbol of difference
- Looks at specific forms of oppression in the modern world — totalitarianism, racism, environmental destruction and militarism — and all the stifling doctrines which are used as justification.
Shopping is not Creating (Significance + literary techniques)
- Characters are emotionally, physically, and spiritually stuck.
- Pop culture references such as the easy bake oven, Nancy Drew novels, etc.
- Deals with the act of buying and consumption. Shopping malls, supermarkets and the topic of buying and consuming are big themes in the story.
- The characters (three sisters) perhaps are trying to escape this consumerism and consumption.
Maturity in Alice in Wonderland
Scolding herself for acting like a child reflects one way in which Alice views maturity. She also sees maturity as being able to recite knowledge, something she continually does to validate herself to others. While visiting the Duchess and discussing how much faster the world would go if everyone minded their own business, Alice relishes the chance to flaunt her knowledge:
She notices the unusualness the bottle labeled “Drink Me” but then drinks its contents without a thought for the consequences. Throughout Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll constantly emphasizes the conflict between Alice’s desire to be sensible and grow up and her natural childish impulses. This conflict is apparent in Alice’s conversation with herself while trapped in the white rabbit’s house.
Alice thinks that she has grown up, but only physically — the concept of maturity never seems to cross her mind. Yet she tries to act like an adult, claiming that she knew that “this kind of thing never happened” in the fairy tales that she “used to read.” However, immediately after this sentence that denounces fairy tales as childish inventions, Alice claims that there “ought to be a book about me.” In this way, she belittles and yet admires fairy tales. The last sentence of this passage, “And when I grow up, I’ll write one,” sums up Alice’s conflicts between her childish imagination and her desire to grow up.
Fairytales
- Fairytales appeal to all classes and age groups in society.
- Teaches some sort of lesson
- Demonstrates values important to the culture at the time
- A journey — the protagonist goes from one place to another — the young innocent girl goes from a state where she was safe to a dangerous situation where she needs help
- Fairytales are stories about ordinary people but experience some kind of transformation
Maturity in Anne of Green Gables
-As Anne grows, she slowly changes. At 11 years old, Anne loses her temper easily, flying into rages when insulted. However, as the story progresses, Anne matures and becomes able to overlook such insults.
When she first moved to Green Gables, Anne was a lonely child who lived on her imagination. While living at Green Gables, she meets real friends, such as Diana Barry. As the both of them grow, the two pretend less and simply talk more. Despite stopping to pretend, Anne’s imagination still continues.
The other characters also help Anne to mature. Marilla, the mother figure, brings Anee up, discipling her as any child. Matt too. These two characters in particular bring about most change in Anne, simply because they raise her and she deeply desires to please them.
