Harry Potter and the Ivory Tower: Conference Report
Of course any press release with the words ‘Harry’ and ‘Potter’ next to each other in the headline is sure to catch the attention of journalists – and they struck gold last week with the announcement...
View ArticleTop Tips for Writing for Children
I wrote a guest blog post on the London Writers’ Club blog: ‘5 Top Tips for Writing for Children‘. You can read it here! And if you don’t know the LWC, and you’re a Londoner and a writer, make sure to...
View ArticleSirius, Albus, Fortius: Children’s Literature in Olympic Shape
So I watched the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games, and though I didn’t cry blue, red and white tears like, seemingly, absolutely everyone else on Twitter and Facebook, I was delightfully surprised...
View ArticleOn Gender (Im)Balance in YA/ ChLit Awards
Salut, Simone! How’s it going up there? Not much has changed here since you left us, I’m afraid. Well, ok, some things have changed, but not as many as we’d wish – not as many as you’d wish. Still...
View ArticleTowards Frenglish Research in Children’s Literature?
A long time ago I was an exemplary (i.e. completely stressed-out) student at the prestigious Lycée Henri-IV in Paris, and I hated it. Desperate to escape the constant humiliations, threats, existential...
View ArticleShould children’s writers like children?
That author Every time I do school visits or go to a book fair, there’s always a grumpy paedophobic author somewhere. S/he’s been writing for longer that I’ve been alive and s/he’s seen it all. S/he’s...
View ArticleOn voyeurism in children’s and YA literature
Breaking news: children’s and YA literature, especially the latter, can be pretty racy. From Tabitha Suzuma’s tale of an incestuous relationship between brother and sister (Forbidden) to The Hunger...
View ArticleThe quality of silence
School visits in primary school are nothing like school visits in high school. Primary school is Care Bear land: children are enthusiastic, chatty, unhibited, fun, on the edge of their seats. You leave...
View Article‘Open Access’, 1. The Problem of ‘Power’.
Outreach, impact, open access – as academics, we’re constantly asked to make our research accessible to the general public, sometimes at great cost to us, whether in terms of time or of money. The...
View ArticleThe Royal Wedding Crashers
The Royal Wedding Crashers is out! and it’s bigger than its older brother I celebrated by writing a blog post for LoveReading 4 Kids about Ten French Children’s Books that are Available in English! But...
View ArticleNews and Mayhem
It’s been a very long while since I last wrote anything here; Russian and Spanish (see post below) have enjoyed a very durable top spot on this blog. Most of the action has been happening over there on...
View ArticleAdapt at your own risk
[Originally published on An Awfully Big Blog Adventure] This is one of my French books, La louve, fabulously illustrated by Antoine Déprez: When I say ‘fabulously’, I mean it in both senses of the...
View ArticleChildfree adults in children’s literature
[Originally published on An Awfully Big Blog Adventure, January 2016] Recently, I’ve started paying attention, when reading children’s literature, to adult characters who don’t have children. This...
View ArticleInsulting the Child
From the academic-reading cave, here’s a little 1923 clipping from The Argonaut, a Californian journal that ran from the late 19th century to the mid-20th century. I wasn’t even looking for anything...
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