Blogs for Kid Lit Writers

I ran across this blog of interest to people who write children's literature. Some of you might be intersted in the blog and in the links it takes you to. Interesting. http://cwim.blogspot.com/.

And here's another: http://thelongstockings.blogspot.com/.

And one from the UK: http://www.kidsbooksuk.blogspot.com/.

Students in my English 380 classes reading Chapter 6 in Perry Nodelman and Mavis Reimer's The Pleasures of Children's Literature, on children's literature and the marketplace, might plug the presence of such blogs into the information groups are finding on awards, bookstore offerings, publisher's catalogs and web sites, and series books consistent with--or resistant to--the demands of the marketplace.

Course Description ENG 380

380-001 MWF 8:00-8:50 380-002 MWF 11:00-11:50
Literature for Children
Joyce HollingsworthMO 207

In ENG 380, students apply close analytical reading and cultural, historical, and literary contexts to texts targeted toward children but often chosen and read by adults. The Children’s Literature field is complex and changing; instead of attempting comprehensive coverage, we’ll focus on the process of reading and selecting classics and new books, examining how children’s literature interacts with popular culture, literary canons, schools, libraries, families, therapy, censorship, the marketplace, etc. We’ll tell stories, share picture books and easy reading materials, and discuss novels and quality nonfiction, developing strategies to help children engage in critical and creative thinking and other pleasures of reading. Papers or exams on books for children ages 9-12, presentation and/or readers’ theatre, discussion leadership and participation, responses to books for younger children. Texts include: Classics of Children's Literature; Nodelman, Pleasures of Children's Literature; Patron, Higher Power of Lucky; Paterson, Bridge to Terabithia; Pullman, His Dark Materials; Curtis, Bud, Not Buddy.

BRICOLAGE

I first encountered the term bricolage in an article on modernist poet T.S. Eliot when doing research on a postcolonial topic. That's how it happens, folks. The concept is related to found art and montage and collage--a sort of magpie thing--a magpie being a bird who collects shiny objects to decorate her nest. I'm taking the magpie approach to this blog, because I have found as a writer (and as a teacher) that if you build it they will come--the ideas, I mean. Postmodern architecture is sometimes characterized by bricolage--collecting elements from past time periods and recombining them, re-membering them, deconstructing and coming out with both/and rather than either/or--breaking down the binaries, blurring the boundaries. Postmodern music, too, does something similar. I linked a couple of You-Tube videos (a distinctly postmodern phenomenon) that use music sampling. One is Amon Tobin, the other They Might Be Giants (fondly known to their fans--including me--as TMBG). Someone put together a montage of movie and television images to go with Tobin (he has a CD called "Bricolage"). The TMBG video is the "group" itself, consisting of two men named John who are musical magpies--their song is from the point of view of a night light. Like another favorite of mine, Shel Silverstein, TMBG write for children and also write stuff that is decidedly NOT for children.