Analiza Web-sites, blogs, pod cast, videos, articles, and powe points - Essay Example

Analysis of Internet Sources for Fantasy Fantasy in children’s fiction is very interesting and alluring. Children learn from what they read, and sometimes fantasy can make children wonder about the world around them. One of the first sites I went to was Shel Silverstein’s site. This was a delightful site for children to explore because he had actual pencil drawings of some of his characters on the home page. When the character on the homepage was clicked, the character became animated on the next page.

The interesting thing was that the animation could be as subtle as a lion blinking their eyes or as blatant as a flying dragon. He had short summaries of each of his books on a separate page so that the reader could examine only one book at a time. This page was all about the fantasy world that Silverstein has created. In contract to Silverstein’s site, Charlotte’s Library was boring. It is written by a woman who is an archeologist and she reviews fantasy books for children. The website itself does not really do much for fantasy except give someone who is looking for fantasy books an idea of some that may be good to read.

The website is very structured and it seemed more geared towards adults who were looking for good books for their children or teenagers. This was disappointing in a way because the reviews were written more for parents than they were for children. Unfortunately, I would say that this website would not be one that I would send anyone to because it did not really make me want to read the reviews. Another site that is similar to Charlotte’s Library is the Annotated List of Children’s Poetry Books.

This is a great site that has annotations about the books that makes a reader want to check them out from their local library and read them. This is an opportunity to see how well the author of the site, Wendy E. Betts, liked the books. Her annotations are intriguing and some of them leave you hanging for more. A very interesting NPR Podcast presented ideas from other authors of fantasy fiction for children. Authors included Neil Gaiman, Christopher Paolini, and Tamora Pierce. Each of these authors writes for different age groups and they give their opinion primarily of the C.S. Lewis “Narnia” series.

There were several interesting ideas that they brought to the discussion. As an example, the idea that children bring something of themselves to the fantasy stories where adults have lost the ability to do this. However, children also know when the author is involved with their novel or when they are not. This was a good insight for me because I have not put much energy into thinking about how and why people write their books. This podcast had a very friendly and cozy feeling as people talked about the books.

I think that this The Guardian Book Club interviewed Philip Pullman, the author of “His Dark Materials Trilogy”. What was interesting was that Pullman does not think about writing for children when he writes his books. Unfortunately, the interviewer was so excited about interviewing Pullman that he spent a lot of time talking and getting his own points across instead of allowing Pullman to talk. I think that this was a very highbrow type of interview and discussion meant for adults rather than for children.

There were many insights I gained from this particular assignment and I have already talked about a few. I think that fantasy fiction appeals to a wide audience and just because it is written for children, this does not mean that only children read it. I gained insight into how authors perceive their own work and how fans can distort the purpose of a work. As an example, many people were talking about the Narnia series and the fact that there is controversy over whether it was a religious book or not.

When reading the books or seeing the movies, it does not seem that everyone sees this series in the same way. Of course, that is why fiction is written, so that many people can read it in many different ways. Works Cited Betts, Wendy E. “Annotated list of Children’s Books.” Windowsill, 2010. 18 June 2011. http://www.windowsill.net/poetry.html Charlotte. “Charlotte’s Library: Fantasy and Science Fiction Books for Kids and Teenagers.” 2011. 18 June 2011. http://charlotteslibrary.blogspot.

com/search/label/fantasy http://www.windowsill.net/poetry.html NPR. “Talk to the Nation: Children’s Fantasy Books”. 5 December 2009. 18 June 2011. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5039319 Mullan, John. “An Interview with Phillip Pullman.” The Guardian Book Club. 21 December 2007. 18 June 2011. http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/ 2007/dec/21/guardianbookclubpodcastphi Harper Collins. Shel Silverstein. 2005. 18 June 2011. http://www.shelsilverstein.com/html/Trademarks.html