Booze, Tattoos, Casinos & Children's Lit

One of my passing hobbies is to take note of how widespread children's literature has become, especially when I come across children's literature where I wasn't expecting it. A general public fancies itself distanced from children's literature (once they begin calling themselves adults, that is) and it makes me giggle to note how wrong they are!

Perhaps this holier-than-children's lit attitude prompted a push-back in popular culture, evidenced in the trend of adult-sized clothing and accessories featuring children's literature characters (and in the recent upswing of movies and TV shows based on children' stories...but maybe that's a post for another day). For example, I've spotted several coffee-shop goers with the Mac laptop decal featuring The Giving Tree and noticed a younger, tattooed generation flaunting Where the Wild Things Are t-shirts. Actually, tattoos of Where the Wild Things Are are quite popular.

Beyond these trends, sometimes children's lit shows up really unannounced. For example, if you live in the San Diego area you know that the micro-brewery business has taken off. Upon dining at Ocean Beach's Pizza Port, imagine my delight when I visited last fall to find that they were featuring a beer titled "Bangarang" with a hand-drawn illustration of Rufio from Spielberg's Hook!

I'm sure that many school bands have played "Hedwig's Theme" from the Harry Potter movies, but I doubt that any have done so quite as creatively as the Ohio State marching band. See what I mean at 3 minutes and 45 seconds into the following clip (although the whole show is pretty impressive):

And of course, who ever said gambling and children's literature don't mix? (You may remember this slot machine if you attended the ChLA conference last year!)

Leave us a comment about your Unexpected Children's Literature encounters!

The Prolonged Youth of "Once Upon A Time"

The theme of PAMLA this year was “Stages of Life: Age, Identity, and Culture," which, as you can imagine, brought out a wealth of discussion on the many variations, formations, and instances of children, childhood and youth in literature as a whole (children's or otherwise). One of the ideas that I saw emerge throughout the conference is the idea of rebirth -- a rediscovery of childhood, of innocence, of youth. Admittedly this popped up in my own paper, but the notion that childness manifests itself in a myriad of ways that can be seen across all stages of life bubbled forth from numerous panels. And directly from that idea came the image of the prolonged or eternal youth.

I caught myself thinking about this in particular when I listened to a panelist discuss the nature of kids stepping out of their structured lives into an adventure. This specific topic discussed the hobo culture for children, and brought up an interesting commentary from the 1930's that concluded that children -- boys and girls alike -- ought to go out for an adventure, to escape and live "like hobos" but only for a few months (six at most) otherwise they will become "spoiled." The child may go "rotten" by experiencing too much of the so-called real world. He or she needs to retain some amount of innocence and unworldliness it seems.

How about flipping that idea, inverting it to think about a person who remains in youth, who tries to prolong his childishness, youth or appearance of youth. Elements of cultures are built around this concept (the image of eternal youth that defines Hollywood, for example), and it plays at the forefront of many YA novels now. The idea of the immortalized teenager, whether by vampire's bite or dystopian technology, suddenly presents these issues in a new light. Prolonged youth eventually leads to a rotten soul, perhaps?

Or if we allow ourselves to go further -- does it turn them downright evil?

Is that the belief spurring what's been done to Peter Pan, particularly in the reenvisioning on the current television series "Once Upon a Time"? The show represents the movement to reclaim fairy tales for adults, evidently by pitting the heroic adults against someone more devious, dangerous, and cunning than the dark Rumpelstiltskin, that someone being the eternal child Peter Pan. Depicting him as a threat to adults and children alike also troubles the usual adult/child binary that his story usually enlists. But in its place, do we now have the opportunity to critique Pan through the deleterious effects of eternal youth? Just something to think about.

Details for Peter Pan & Wendy Discussion Circle, Thursday Nov 29

This Thursday (Nov 29) at 6:30 pm in the SDSU Black Box Experimental Theater, The National Center for the Study of Children's Literature, in collaboration with director Margaret Larlham, SDSU's School of Theatre, Television, & Film, and our own Children's Literature Graduate Student Association, will be leading a discussion circle about J.M. Barrie and Peter Pan. This discussion can be part of your experience of seeing the production of Peter Pan and Wendy now showing at the Don Powell theatre or simply for your own edification (attending the show is not mandatory, and the discussion circle is FREE). Please tell your students and friends, and plan on attending yourselves. It should be a wonderful event, with or without (though especially WITH) the added delight of Peter Pan and Wendy.

Participants include Joseph Thomas, the director of the NCSCL, children's literature scholar Mary Galbraith, the director Margaret Larlham, and SDSU English graduate students (and ChildLit Grad Student Association members) Kelsey Wadman, Alya Hameed, Alix Lombardo, Lauren Benard, and Jill Coste.

Please attend! For more information, follow the link above to the School of Theatre, Television, & Film's Peter Pan & Wendy site, or contact Joseph Thomas at jtthomas@mail.sdsu.edu.

Current ChildLit Activities around SDSU

Some goings-on around campus...

1. If you've visited the English Lit department's website recently you might have noticed a news item freshly featured on the front page, highlighting the impressive activities of Professor Jenny Minitti-Shippey and students of her Class on Literary Editing and Publishing (ENGL 576).  Her students have created an insightful and creative array of web journals centered around different genres and aspects of young people's literature. From the multicultural (The Playground Diaries) to dystopian (The Dauntless Review) and all that bizarre stuff in between (The Bizarre Assemblage, for example), these new blogs demonstrate the popular and growing interests of the current era. There are seven literary journals listed that all feature book reviews, interviews, event write ups and more, so peruse the sites and see which ones fit your fancy. Speaking of event highlights...

2. The SDSU Childlit GSA held its first event last Thursday, Nov. 8, at Lestat's Coffehouse and it was a great success. We were introduced to some new faces (and even a random passerby who shared his interests with us too!) and spent the evening immersed in various topics intersecting Pop Culture with Children's Lit. We kicked off the event with a pub(lication) quiz created by GSA President Kelsey Wadman, testing everyone's knowledge of kidlit as it exists in movies, music, and beyond. Congrats to super member Megan Parry for taking home the honor of first place accompanied by a ginormous cupcake. From there we delved into discussions on TV shows and the rise of fairy tale adaptations (Phillip Pullman's new book would have been a great asset for this discussion, come to think of it); book-to-movie adaptations, including the pros and cons when Disney gains the production rights; favorite Disney films/characters and why; and the occasional tangent into conference experiences or imaginary friends. It was a fruitful discussion which culminated with reviewing Maurice Sendak's appearance on the Colbert Report, which served as icing on the (cup)cake.

3. Don't forget! The Peter Pan & Wendy theatre performance is almost upon us as well! Performances begin tomorrow (Nov 16) and more news about the Pre-Show Discussion circle should appear shortly. In the meantime, check out the Production Blog for Peter Pan & Wendy.