I've been reading a backlog of emails for an hour or so from my children's lit listserv in preparation for teaching ch lit this fall. So far I found (reading a listserv is kind of like finding a cheap treasure at the DI) a great link to an article about Harry Potter by Stephen King which I'm going to pair with an article MB sent me about HP by Michael Berube. While I have never completely read a HP book and will not have my students read one, I do want to use the HP hysterium to discuss issues of writing for children, publishing, movie tie-ins, and, especially, children literacy or the perceived lack thereof, etc.
I still have 1735 messages to go through, the price I must pay to consider myself worthy.
7 comments:
I would love to see that Berube article--I loved the HP books, not least because it was a shared literary experience between just about everyone in my extended family. Nothing like it has every happened or ever will again, I'm sure--and I feel a little sad that it's over, to be honest. I've recently persuaded my older son to start the Philip Pullman books--His Dark Materials. I'm hoping for another, probably more limited, phenomenon.
Yeah, I kind of missed out on the shared experience.
Funny you mention Pullman as I'm about 90% sure I will have my ch lit class read the first one in the trilogy. I see the movie comes out in December.
Yeah for Pullman! And yeah for me for sending out cool articles!
I've been zipping through the Harry Potter books over the last two weeks. They're better than I expected, and they get better as they go in my opinion. Pullman is still better, though. And I think Ursula K. LeGuin's Earthsea Trilogy is also quite good.
pullman is great, but the third book really lost its way in fancy-ass metaphysical jibber jabber. I'm just saying. But he's amazing at world creation. And even though the third book got ahead of itself, I do love His Dark Materials. The movie actually looks like it will be pretty great. I can't say the same about the Dark is Rising movie--a series that I loved as a kid and am currently rereading. The preview really made me cringe.
Awhile back i listened to a really interesting NPR program (All Things Considered, Talk of the Nation ... something like that) about the guy who wrote the OZ stories. I haven't read any of the books--or the Harry Potter ones--but the program might be worth digging up on the NPR archives.
The thing I have against a lot of children's lit is the hyper fantasy element--an element that seems more escapist than life-affirming challenging.
I could hear Stephen King's literary voice in his review. He wrote it as a writer, and not as a reader. Interesting!
He mirrored my own thoughts on Potter's last adventure. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to articulate it is such a clear way?.
Best of luck in your child-lit class. The subject matter requires that one regress a bit. I wonder what metaphorical fairies lurk in the recesses of cognition as you recede into the foggy innocence of the childhood mind?
Time accelerates and you must put your studious efforts into pedagogy. What themes do you teach? What patterns do you relay to your students? What thoughts stay in the recess of your own mind? What do you keep from the "other?" Enquiring minds want to know..
Best,
Trav
I'm posting as anonymous because I'm lazy...but I also happen to be a huge fan of Counterintuitive's and his child lit course. As a former student of his, I can honestly say that it was--bar none--the best class I've taken in my two-years at SLCC.
CT, you don't need to read all of those messages to be "worthy"...you've already got what it takes! Just relax an work that magic that you do so well.
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