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The Power of Story
by Caroline Webb
This is not a children's book itself, but rather a scholarly analysis exploring how beloved British fantasy authors like J.K. Rowling, Diana Wynne Jones, and Terry Pratchett craft stories that entertain young readers while teaching them to think critically about the world around them. Parents and educators will discover how these writers use imaginative storytelling to help children develop deeper understanding, resilience, and agency.
This study examines the children’s books of three extraordinary British writers—J.K. Rowling, Diana Wynne Jones, and Terry Pratchett—and investigates their sophisticated use of narrative strategies not only to engage children in reading, but to educate them into becoming mature readers and indeed individuals. The book demonstrates how in quite different ways these writers establish reader expectations by drawing on conventions in existing genres only to subvert those expectations. Their strategies lead young readers to evaluate for themselves both the power of story to shape our understanding of the world and to develop a sense of identity and agency. Rowling, Jones, and Pratchett provide their readers with fantasies that are pleasurable and imaginative, but far from encouraging escape from reality, they convey important lessons about the complexities and challenges of the real world—and how these may be faced and solved. All three writers deploy the tropes and imaginative possibilities of fantasy to disturb, challenge, and enlarge the world of their readers.
Routledge
176
9781317935759
2014-09-15
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