Subjects in Realistic Fiction

Family Life

The family stories of the late 1930s through the early 1960s depict some of the strongest, warmest

family relationships in contemporary realistic fiction for

children.

Sydney

Taylor’s All of

a Kind Family

The actions of the characters suggest that:

a. security is gained when family members work together;

b. each member has responsibility to other members;

c. Consideration for others is desirable; and

d. family unity and loyalty can overcome hard times and peer conflicts.

Early 1960s, many changes have taken place in the characterizations of the American family in realistic fiction.

The Authors in the 1970s,1980s, and 1990s often focused on need to overcome family disturbances.

Some issues related to Children and their

Families

Death of one or both parents Foster families Single-parent Families Children of Unmarried females The disruptions caused by

divorce and remarriage Child Abuse

Authors of realistic fiction may show a strong need

for family unity and a desire to keep at least some of the members

together.

Authors of realistic stories about family disturbances

use several literary techniques to create credible plots and characters. Often,

they look at painful and potentially destructive

situations and feelings that are common in society today.

The characterization may portray the vulnerability of the characters, create sympathy for them, and

describe how they handle jolting disruptions and

personal discoveries that affect their lives.

Some Authors use specific situations or discoveries to

allow children to escape from all reality.

In realistic stories about family life, the antagonists may be a family member or an outside

force.

Death of a parent Divorce Moving to a new location

To relieve the impact of painful situations, authors

may add humor.

Desertion, Divorce, and Remarriage

Beverly Cleary’s Strider

Uses a series of diary entries to reveal changes in character

By caring for abandoned dog, fourteen-year-old Leigh Boots finally learns to accept his parents’ divorce and gains self-confidence.

Libby Hathorn’s Thunderwith

Also uses a dog to help her heroine, Lara, gain strength and the ability to respond to her father’s new family.

Creech’s Walk Two Moons

Develops as Sal tries to discover why her mother left

Ruth White’s Belle Prater’s Boy

It deals with the loss of a parent.

Carol Lea Benjamin’s The Wicked Stepdog

Twelve-year-old Lou is afraid of losing her father’s love when he presents her with a new stepmother and a new “stepdog”.

Single-Parent Families

Single-parent families children portrays such families more often and sometimes more

candidly than did most realistic fiction in the past.

A family’s struggle to survive without one parent is popular

in contemporary realistic fiction.

Authors may suggest that the experience strengthens the children in the family or that

the experience causes so many difficulties that the children

find coping impossible.

Jenny Davis’s Good-Bye and

Keep Cold

Begins with death and

continues with adjustments to a

single –parent family.

Marilyn Sach’s The

Bears’ House

Detailed portrayal of a harsh reality.

Numerous contemporary realistic fiction novels explore themes related

to both the need for strong family loyalty during times of severe

emotional strain and the person-versus-society conflict that results

when children fear the possible actions of people in social service.

Paula Fox’s The

Moonlight Man

Catherine realizes that it is sometimes very difficult to love someone, but we may still love someone if we dislike him.

Sarah Ellis’s Pick-up Sticks

Develops stronger relationships between a mother and a daughter.

Many of the stories written about single-parent families

develop themes in which children become stronger as they make discoveries about themselves and the adults in

their lives.

The Moonlight

Man

Some protagonists learn to accept the foibles of separated fathers or mothers and even grow closer to their parents.

Child Abuse and Foster

Homes

According to Eva-Maria Metcalf and Michael J. Meyer (1992), child abuse referrals in society are increasing rapidly.

In children's literature, the adult world may provide cruel experiences rather than happy and secure environments for development.

Growing Up

Children may need to overcome emotional

problems, to develop or recover self-esteem, and to identify their roles in their

widening world.

As children grow older, they may feel self-conscious about

their changing bodies and developing sexuality.

Such books also let children know that they are not alone, that other children experience the

same problems and overcome them.

Peer Relationship

Peer relationships involve many of the joys and sorrows with

which children become familiar in family life, but peer

relationships also expand understandings of other people

and the world in ways that familiar family ties cannot.

Best friends should SUPPORT, rather than

HURT.

Jane Cutler’s

Rats! Developed a

humorous sibling relationships

Jason, a fourth grader

Edward, a first grader

Cynthia Voigt’s Bad Girls

Uses the setting of a fifth-grade classroom and focuses attention on the behaviors of two girls who become best friends.

Authors often develop conflict in stories about interpersonal

relationships by using person-against-self or person-against-

person conflicts.

Authors enable readers to:

a. to identify inner conflicts;b. to understand why the characters

have the conflicts;c. how the characters handle the

conflicts; andd. what things enable resolution of the

conflicts.

Resolutions should not be contrived; they should

appear as natural outcomes.

Authors develop:

a. Believable protagonists

b. Believable opposing forces that serve as antagonists

The conflicts that authors identify and the ways in which the characters overcome these conflicts usually communicate

unifying themes about interpersonal relationships.

E. L. Konigsburg’s Jennifer, Hecate, MacBeth, William McKinley and Me,

Elizabeth

Konigsburg encourages understanding of Elizabeth’s inner conflict & need for a friend by emphasizing her shyness.

Janet Taylor Lisle’s

Afternoon of the Elves

Developed the consequences of being different, having unusual responsibilities, and needing friendship and understanding.

Stories about growing up frequently deal with

problems associated with moving to new

locations.

Barbara Park’s The Kid in the Red Jacket• Explores the

problems faced by a fifth-grade boy when he moves to a different city.

Paula Danziger’s

Amber Brown Is Not a Crayon

• Explores adjustments when a third-grade girl’s best friend moves.

Physical Changes

Authors who write about physical maturity often describe embarrassing

physical characteristics and explore ways in which the characters, friends, and

family members respond to the characteristics.

Person-against-person conflicts include peer

victimization of a main character, with the story told from the viewpoint of either

the victimized child or a child who is part of the peer

group.

Some problems have simplistic or humorous resolutions, while other resolutions are complex

and express the extreme sensitivity of children who are experiencing changes in their

bodies & increased self-consciousness about their

appearance as they grow up.

Judy Blume’s Are You There God? Its

Me, Margaret

• Explores a young girl’s sexuality.

• Eleven-year-old Margaret has many questions about the physical changes occurring in her body.

Emotional Changes

Books that develop plots around emotional maturity-and physical maturity as well-differ in several

important ways from the realistic fiction.

Children confront a wide

range of emotional issues

while growing up.

Lois Lowry’s

Anastasia Krupnik

• A ten-year-old begins to be the center of attention and her jealousy when she is able to place her family’s new baby on her list of loves instead of her list of hates.

Lois Lowry’s

Your Move, J.P.!

• Hopelessly in love

Phyllis Reynolds Naylor’s Alice in

Rapture, Sort Of

• The main character face emotional changes caused by boy-girl relationships.

In Reluctantly Alice, she causes difficulties when she decides that it is her responsibility to advise her father and her older brother on their love lives.

In All But Alice, she continues her meddling into her father’s and brother’s lives and decides that she needs to become involve in female relationships.

Barbara O’Connor’s

Beethoven In Paradise

• Martin, a twelve-year-old protagonist faces problems because he loves music.

Survival

Physical and emotional survival are

fundamental challenges for all humans.

Confrontations with dangers in nature, society,

or oneself require and, ideally, develop strength

of character in young people and adults.

Authors may develop forceful natural or social settings as antagonists in

stories, clarifiers of conflicts, or means of developing desired

moods.

Style is also important in

survival literature.

Careful word selection, imagery, and rhythm

patterns can heighten the emotional impact and

credibility of adventures outside the realms of experience of most

readers.

Authors of survival literature usually rely on consistent point of

view-often first-person or limited

omniscient.

Surviving in Nature

George’s Julie of the Wolves

• A thirteen-year-old girl lost in the arctic tundra develops a friendship with wolves.

Scott O’Dell’s Island of the Blue Dolphins

• Karana, a young Indian girl, survives years alone on a Pacific Island.

• “I will tell you about my Island.”

• “I was afraid.”• “Should she go back

& face loneliness or go on & face probable disaster?”

Gary Paulsen’s Hatchet

• Carefully documents Brian’s problem solving approach.

• Encourage readers to understand both the gravity & consequences of many of the problems.

Surviving Inner-City

Reality

Several authors of realistic fiction portray

the problems of overcoming poverty, gang

violence, and living without the security of

strong, supportive family members.

Virginia Hamilton’s The Planet of Junior Brown

• about friendship, loyalty, and learning to live together.

Myer’s Somewhere

in the Darkness

• A story in which a boy learns about the harsh realities of life when he accompanies his convict father on a search for truth and respect.

Homelessness in America is a major social

problem.

Karen Barbour’s Mr. Bow

Tie

• The story of two children who befriend a homeless man and reunite him with his own family.

Surviving in a Dangerous

World

In the person-against-society conflicts of this survival

literature, the protagonists are usually innocent children

and the antagonists are terrorist groups, oppressive military governments, and

mass violence.

Gillian Cross’s On the Edge

• the hostage is the kidnapped son of a journalist.

James Watson’s Talking in Whispers A survival story in which the main character is hunted by the security forces of a South American government that denies basic human rights.

Rafik Schami’s A Hand Full

of Stars

• A teenager who wants to be a journalist within this suppressed society.

A Hand Full of Stars means:

“The Hand is the hand of Uncle Salim, always there to

guide the narrator; in the saddest moments, it points the way out of despair. Like the stars that illuminate the dark night sky, the Stars in the hand stand for hope.”

Death

Part of growing up is realizing and

gradually accepting the fact

of death.

Differences in cause of conflict, resolution of conflict, and depth of

emotional involvement are apparent in books of

realistic fiction about death.

Healing takes time, memories are worth retaining, and family

members can help each other in times of

sadness.

Constance C. Greene’s

Beat the Turtle Drum

• A girl’s reactions to her sister’s accidental death by describing the warm relationship between ten-year-old Joss and her twelve-year-old sister, Kate.

Richard Peck’s

Remembering the Good

Times

• Suicide of a best friend

People as Individuals, not

Stereotypes

Stereotypical views of males and females,

people with disabilities, and the elderly are

becoming less prevalent than they

once where in children’s literature.

Males and Females

Publishers are becoming sensitive to

the need for literature that does

not portray either sex stereotypes.

Changes in the roles of females:

Contains more girls who are distinct individuals

Girls may be brave, they maybe tomboys, & they maybe unorthodox

Mothers different roles in recent:

They work outside the home They may even have jobs more

demanding than those of their husbands

Individuals Who Are Physically Different or

Disabled

Children’s realistic fiction is becoming increasingly

sensitive to the importance of overcoming

cruel or condescending stereotypes.

Judy Blume’s Blubber

• Shows how peer cruelty to someone who is physically different can have negative consequences for all concerned.

Mary Sage (1977) recommends the following criteria when evaluating

books:

1. The author should deal with the physical, practical, and emotional manifestations of the disabling condition accurately but not didactically.

2. Other characters in the story should behave realistically as they relate to the individual with disabilities.

3. The story should provide honest & workable information about disabling conditions & the potential of individuals with disabilities.

Writers of such literature often express

the hope that their stories will encourage

positive attitudes toward individuals with

physical disabilities.

Julia Cunningham

’s Burnish Me Bright

• A mute boy encounters prejudice, misunderstanding, fear, & even hostility.

Ellen Howard’s

Edith Herself

• The girl, Edith, faces her own fears and the ignorance of others who do not understand her epileptic seizures.

The Elderly

The children concluded that:

1. Some elderly people lead boring, lonely lives where nothing changes;

2. Grandparents in books look older than their own grandparents;

3. The elderly do not work, have fun, or do anything exciting;

4. Young people are mean to elderly people;5. Book characters do not want to listen or talk to

elderly;6. Some elderly people are mean, crabby, overly

tidy, fussy, & unfair;7. The elderly like to remember the good old days

or dream of better times; and8. There are few happy books about the elderly.

Some authors of contemporary realistic

fiction are exploring the problems related to old

age with greater sensitivity than authors

expressed in books of the past.

Gail Radley’s

The Golden Days

• Explores both the unhappy emotions & the unwanted feelings of a boy living with foster parents & of an elderly woman living in a nursing home.

Peter Hartling’s Old John

• A strong elderly man who needs for love and independence.

Prepared by:

KRISHNA B. PONCE

BEED-3A

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