Synopses & Reviews
The most accessible approach yet to childrens literature and narrative theory, Telling Childrens Stories is a comprehensive collection of never-before-published essays by an international slate of scholars that offers a broad yet in-depth assessment of narrative strategies unique to childrens literature. The volume is divided into four interrelated sections: “Genre Templates and Transformations,” “Approaches to the Picture Book,” “Narrators and Implied Readers,” and “Narrative Time.” Mike Caddens introduction considers the links between the various essays and topics, as well as their connections with such issues as metafiction, narrative ethics, focalization, and plotting. Ranging in focus from picture books to novels such as To Kill a Mockingbird, from detective fiction for children to historical tales, from new works such as the Lemony Snicket series to classics like Toms Midnight Garden, these essays explore notions of montage and metaphor, perspective and subjectivity, identification and time. Together, they comprise a resource that will interest and instruct scholars of narrative theory and childrens literature, and that will become critically important to the understanding and development of both fields.
Review
"This book sounds a call for all literary scholars to embrace children's literature."—D.J. Brothers, CHOICE D.J. Brothers
Review
"Child literature scholars as well as students interested in narrative theory will no doubt repeatedly consult the in-depth analyses as well as the strong theoretical chapters in this valuable volume."—Yasmine Motawy, International Research Society for Childrens Literature CHOICE
Review
"[Telling Children's Stories] is a welcome and accomplished contribution to children's literature studies, and I am confident that I will return often to many of these fine essays."—Richard Flynn, Children's Literature Association Quarterly Yasmine Motawy - International Research Society for Children's Literature
Review
"Storyworlds across Media offers a diverse and challenging collection of essays. . . . The collection as a whole abundantly proves that a media-conscious narratology is a must if narrative theory wants to keep up with the times."and#8212;Image and Narrative
Review
andldquo;
Storyworlds across Media fruitfully explores an important new concept in narrative theoryandmdash;the storyworldandmdash;that is of compelling interest across disciplines, from TV writing and popular cultureand#160;to digital media design and artificial intelligence.andrdquo;andmdash;Janet H. Murray, author of
Hamlet on the Holodeck: The Future of Narrative in CyberspaceReview
and#8220;Storyworlds across Media offers a great deal of insight into the contemporary cultural use of proliferating opportunities (especially in digital media) for innovation in storytelling.and#8221;and#8212;Richard Walsh, author of Novel Arguments: Reading Innovative American Fiction
Synopsis
The proliferation of media and their ever-increasing role in our daily life has produced a strong sense that understanding mediaand#8212;everything from oral storytelling, literary narrative, newspapers, and comics to radio, film, TV, and video gamesand#8212;is key to understanding the dynamics of culture and society.
Storyworlds across Media explores how media, old and new, give birth to various types of storyworlds and provide different ways of experiencing them, inviting readers to join an ongoing theoretical conversation focused on the question: how can narratology achieve media-consciousness?and#160;
The first part of the volume critically assesses the cross- and transmedial validity of narratological concepts such as storyworld, narrator, representation of subjectivity, and fictionality. The second part deals with issues of multimodality and intermediality across media. The third part explores the relation between media convergence and transmedial storyworlds, examining emergent forms of storytelling based on multiple media platforms. Taken together, these essays build the foundation for a media-conscious narratology that acknowledges both similarities and differences in the ways media narrate.
and#160;and#160;
About the Author
Mike Cadden is a professor of English, the director of childhood studies, and the chair of the Department of English, Foreign Languages, and Journalism at Missouri Western State University. He is the author of Ursula K. Le Guin Beyond Genre: Fiction for Children and Adults. Contributors include Nathalie op de Beeck, Holly Blackford, Mike Cadden, Elisabeth Rose Gruner, Martha Hixon, Dana Keren-Yaar, Alexandra Lewis, Chris McGee, Maria Nikolajeva, Danielle Russell, Magdalena Sikorska, Susan Stewart, Andrea Schwenke Wyile, Angela Yannicopoulou, and Angelika Zirker.