Postmodern representation has become a key aspect of many recent picture books. It can be argued that, apart from entertainment, the intention of many picture book creators is first to question the foundations on which our crumbling world has been erected, and then to offer their own alternative. A prime example is the non-linearity of Scieszka's The Stinky Cheese Man. This study examines two examples of books that challenge fewer narrative conventions while re-storying traditional fairytales: Wiesner's The Three Pigs and Scieszka's The Frog Prince Continued. Unlike The Stinky Cheese Man, these narratives do have a message and retain enough linearity to demonstrate an individual's ability to create his own "happily ever after."
Journal
The Looking Glass : New Perspectives on Children's LiteratureISSN
1551-5680Volume
9Issue
3Publisher
La Trobe UniversitySection Title
JabberwockyAuthor Biography
Jennifer Johnson is a candidate of the Master of Arts in Children's Literature programme at the University of British Columbia. Restorying Crumbling Realities is her first article to be published. She wrote it for a library materials course in contemporary children's literature and is excited to delve further into the topic of postmodernism and traditional literature when she begins her thesis in 2006. As well as reading and writing about children's literature, Jennifer enjoys sharing it with her two sons ages two and eight months.Date Created
2007-12-11Rights Statement
Essays and articles published in The Looking Glass may be reproduced for non-profit use by any educational or public institution; letters to the editor and on-site comments made by our readers may not be used without the expressed permission of that individual. Any commercial use of this journal, in whole or in part, by any means, is prohibited. Authors of accepted articles assign to The Looking Glass the right to publish and distribute their text electronically and to archive and make it permanently available electronically. They retain the copyright and, 90 days after initial publication, may republish it in any form they wish as long as The Looking Glass is acknowledged as the original source.Data source
OJS data migration 2025: https://ojs.latrobe.edu.au/ojs/index.php/tlg/article/view/33
