Children's and Young Adult Literature Commons^™

The Monster Appears, S. Dorman

The Mythic Circle

No abstract provided.

Multiverse, David Sparenberg

The Mythic Circle

No abstract provided.

The Pale Beyond, Kevan Kenneth Bowkett

The Mythic Circle

No abstract provided.

A Perfect Escape: Fantasy, Place And Narrative In Adolescence, Cydney Cherepak

MFA in Illustration & Visual Culture

This essay explores the realms of special places, the literary genre of fantasy, narrative, and comics. These topics are traversed alongside subjects of adolescence and the creation of stories for middle-grade readers. Framed with personal stories, as well as peaks into my process, I investigate these subjects through the lens of my own life and work, specifically my thesis project, a comic for middle-grade readers titled Beyond the Castle Walls. Beginning with adolescence in association with special places, I consider the work of developmental psychologists David Sobel and Edith Cobb as they pin-point the role of secret forts, nature, …

Meet Me In The Middle Ages: Engaging With Fantasy, Reality, And Collaborative World-Building, Amanda Greene

MFA in Illustration & Visual Culture

This critical essay accompanies and describes my thesis project, Medievalia Miscellany, a magazine for middle-grade readers which explores the world of medieval fantasy through art, comics, stories, and activities. Throughout the essay, I use my own term “archaeological upcycling” to discuss and explore a variety of relationships between ideas of parts and a whole. I then use it to characterize the way stories are created out of many different parts and how these parts help a reader to relate to both the world of the story and the world in which they live. I describe the genre of medieval fantasy …

Finding Their Chrysanthemum: Linguistic Representation In Children's Literature, Marielena Zajac

Master of Arts in Professional Writing Capstones

Children in America today struggle with finding themselves in the books they read due to societal expectations. From an early age, children are dictated on the correct way to speak and write in “American,” which can leave children and their home languages feeling unseen and dismissed. To help further the conversation and promotion of linguistic diversity in American society, this capstone analyzes dialectal representation in children’s books, with a heavy focus on attitudinal linguistic principles rather than prescriptive mechanics. The secondary research explores current literature and resources that discuss literacy acquisition in adolescents, trends in dialects in America, and childhood …

The Screen And Development: Creative Writing And Liminality In Children’S Literature, Rebecca E. Glenn

All Theses

This creative thesis strives to research and implement the overlap of liminality found within Children’s Literature, especially those works that exist through the screen. The critical component of this thesis explores the ways in which childhood development and maturity, a theme commonly found within Children’s Literature, embodies its own “right of passage” associated with the liminal. The journey of the Children’s Literature protagonist is often wrought with this movement from familiar boundaries to a sense of new development. The critical analysis emphasizes the methods Children’s Literature genre uses emotion, familial connections, symbology, space, and even elements of the monstrous to …

Plant Wise, Sophia Llamas

Honors Projects

Conceptually, Plant Wise is the key to bridging the gap between preconceived ideas about vegan and vegetarianism and successfully integrating plant-based foods into your everyday life. Physically, Plant Wise is a self-educational, interactive booklet chock-full of activities intended for users to complete at their own pace. Inside this 56-page booklet, there are recipes, doodling spaces, weekly check sheets, activities to do with friends and family, challenges, and so much more. Plant Wise utilizes these activities and journaling opportunities throughout as a self-reflective vehicle to give users an experience to reflect on, which aids in the retention of what’s been learned …

Boston Discusses The Massacre, Jean C. O'Connor

The Montana English Journal

Teachers may use this chapter from The Remarkable Cause: A Novel of James Lovell and the Crucible of the Revolution as a short story for grades 7 – 12., to explore themes of interpersonal conflict, conflict resolution, and the value of law.

The chapter “Boston Discusses the Massacre” is taken from The Remarkable Cause: A Novel of James Lovell and the Crucible of the Revolution (Knox Press, 2020), and used with permission. James Lovell, teacher at the Boston Latin School, discusses the pivotal events of March 5, 1770. As the conflicts that become the American Revolution begin a group of …

Et Cetera, Marshall University

Et Cetera

Founded in 1953, Et Cetera is an annual literary magazine that publishes the creative writing and artwork of Marshall University students and affiliates. Et Cetera is free to the Marshall University community.

Et Cetera welcomes submissions in literary and film criticism, poetry, short stories, drama, all types of creative non-fiction, photography, and art.

Femininity Reclaiming Chivalry In The Harry Potter Series, Ashley M. Watson

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

This paper focuses on the reclaiming of chivalric values by female characters in the Harry Potter series by comparing them to Arthurian characters. Scholars have extensively compared the narrative of the Knights of the Round Table to the global phenomenon of the Harry Potter series, but in this paper I explore, through a feminist lens, a character comparison of the Harry Potter novels and Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte D’Arthur. I will show how female characters in modern literature reclaim chivalry. This is important because it exemplifies a shift in the position of women into a more active role. I …

Through Critique And Beyond: Speculative Fiction As A Tool Of Critical Pedagogy, Syd Thorne

Master's Projects and Capstones

This field projects centers around the issue of hopelessness among teachers and students and examines the genre of speculative fiction as a potential tool for cultivating critical hope in the classroom and as an asset to critical pedagogy. Utopian pedagogy and critical pedagogy make up the theoretical framework of this research and project development. The research explores the use of speculative fiction in three areas: activism and identity, student engagement, and utopian performance. The review of the literature demonstrates that the use of speculative fiction in the classroom has the potential to engage students in conversations about social justice and …

The Legacy Book In America, 1664–1792, Roxanne Harde, Lindsay Yakimyshyn

Zea E-Books Collection

Legacy books in colonial America were instruments for the transmission of cultural values between generations: the dying mother (usually) instructing and advising children on the path to salvation and heavenly reunions. They were a popular and influential form of women’s discourse that distilled the ideologies of the religious establishment into practical and emotional lessons for lay persons, especially the young.

This collection draws together legacy texts written by colonial American women and girls: five mother’s legacy books and two legacies by children, organized here chronologically. These legacies were writ­ten in anticipation of dying, making awareness of death central to the …

The Three Kindreds, Jonathan Rolfe

The Mythic Circle

High are the Elves, and high their works, And bright was Earth beneath their hand,

Editors' Introductions, The Editors

The Mythic Circle

No abstract provided.

The Black Eyes Of Ulspruth-Dimot, Lee Clark Zumpe

The Mythic Circle

A misty morning met the awakening village of Madichi. Dawn made pale the cloudy skies, and upon the breeze cascading down from the mountains was a subtle chill.

Stories Grow Larger In The Night, Sarah Berti

The Mythic Circle

in the morning fold your wings but in the dark go out

C.S. Lewis's Meditation Over "The Book Of The Leoun", Joe R. Christopher

The Mythic Circle

One wonders what did Chaucer mean to make?! A version out of French, for versing’s sake?

Two In One, David A. Sparenberg

The Mythic Circle

As I looked to the high ground, which was indeed shaped in the semblance of a sublime albeit miniature mountain, imagine my amazement to hold in view the monumental figure of a curious two-headed deity.

Mythic Circle #43, The Editors

The Mythic Circle

Is it just us, or was 2020-2021 the worst year of the past hundred years? Infections, deaths, lockdowns, and quarantines too long for human endurance just kept on keeping on, intensified by squabbles between proponents of collective health measures (masks, vaccines, social distancing) on one side and of individual personal liberties, regardless of the social and health impact, on the other. But through it all, artists continued to think, dream, and produce new work.

How The Dryad And The Naiad Got Or Didn't Get Together, Kevan Kenneth Bowkett

The Mythic Circle

Once, in the river-land of Sopenya, near Lake Chellu, there lived a naiad and a dryad. They were a boy and a girl, respectively.

You Passed Me The Story, Sarah Berti

The Mythic Circle

in the dark! you passed me the story

Two Souls On A Shore, Geoffrey Reiter

The Mythic Circle

The elf and the Kuparean man were hungry as they walked along the shore of the island. They did not remain at the rock-choked shallows that had disemboweled their trireme.

The Tale Of The Troll Maiden And The Cobbler, David Gilman Frederick

The Mythic Circle

Once, in the lands across the sea, there was a cobbler. Unremarkable as such an occupation may be here, in those lands it is one of high esteem. They have rugged cliffs to scale, unknown steppes to cross, jagged boulders, spiny hedgehogs, mudflats, cacti, flints, vines, thorns— much of that land, I have heard, is picturesque, with sweeping vistas and forests that anticipate the colors of the sunset.

Welcome To The Busty Wench, E. Clarence Peterson

The Mythic Circle

Toby’s step down from the coach was greeted by the damp embrace of cobblestone puddles. Deceptively deep and cold, they were none too fresh, either.

Emhain Ablach, Joshua S. Fullman

The Mythic Circle

A slate horizon keeps captive none who’d gaze with eyes eternal,

Tricked By The Queen Of Fey, Ella Wallsworth-Bell

The Mythic Circle

Before going to the pub, I take a quick stroll to pluck up courage. Turn along the lane out of the village, my smart shoes softly tap-tapping on the tarmac. A few early stars shine bright in the clear autumn sky and my stomach does somersaults.

The Infinite Crisis: How The American Comic Book Has Been Shaped By War, Winston Andrus

War, Diplomacy, and Society (MA) Theses

This thesis project argues that war has been the greatest catalyst for the American comic book medium to become a socio-political change agent within western society. Comic books have become one of the most pervasive influences to global popular culture, with superheroes dominating nearly every popular art form. Yet, the academic world has often ignored the comic book medium as a niche market instead of integrated into the broader discussions on cultural production and conflict studies. This paper intends to bridge the gap between what has been classified as comic book studies and the greater academic world to demonstrate the …

20 Things, Reann Parker

Honors Theses

20 Things is a short young adult novel that explores a variety of topics and themes, from mental health, recovery, and self discovery to race, love, and friendship. Beginning with a high school girl named Halle waking up in a hospital after a suicide attempt, the novel is a coming of age story about the help Halle receives and what she goes through in trying to find reasons to keep living. The novel is divided into ten chapters: “Waking Up,” “Going Home,” “Arriving,” “Being Honest,” “Keeping the Faith,” “Soul Searching,” “Willingness,” “Maintaining,” “Checking In,” and “Living.” Each chapter represents the …

Entertainment Media Perceptions Of Minorities In Young Adult Adaptations, Kynnadie Bennett

Scholars Week

This is an exploration of stereotypical and racist portrayals of minorities, specifically African-American, Latinx, and Native American communities, in film and television in the past and how that has affected representation in film adaptations of young adult literature. Young adult literature is one of the highest-selling genres in literature, purchased by both young adults and actual adults. In recent years, young adult literature has been adapted into film and television series and while representation has improved since the early years of entertainment history, there are still problems in the industry: many of the stereotypes remain, some minorities lack representation, and …