Since Jack went up the hill with Jill, Jack jumped over the candlestick, and Jack climbed the beanstalk (to name just a few of his exploits,) he must be wiped out. Doesn’t it seem like a disproportionate number of nursery rhymes and fairy tales contain a hero named Jack? Is this just a coincidence? What’s a nursery rhyme vs. a fairy tale? First things first, …
When life gives you lemons, make lemonade! That cheer-boosting adage works for some people, but others are perfectly happy sucking sour lemons. Literature is full of chipper lemonade-makers, but there’s something about those lemon-sucking grumps that draws readers in. Is it their angsty sarcasm? Their jaded world-weariness? Their stubborn dedication to doom-and-gloom even when everything else is giggles and rainbows? Are Negative Nancys somehow more …
Bullies are discussed a lot these days, but they aren’t something new. Tormenters have been around for a long time … especially in literature. Let’s take an inside look at the characters who are bullies and learn about their consequences. Marion Hawthorne In the 1964 children’s novel, Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh, Marion Hawthorne is a smart-mouthed, entitled classroom bully. It’s never determined why she is …
Do you know why we non-magical folks are referred to as muggles in the world of Harry Potter?
