Kid You Not Podcast

Kid You Not Podcast

By Lauren and ClementineEducationArtsKids & Family
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Kid You Not Podcast episodes

  • Episode 11: Mothers in Children’s Literature

    In Lauren’s words, ‘mothers are the scariest thing in children’s literature’. Find out why in this episode! You can download it HERE (28 min), subscribe to us on iTunes, or play it in the sidebar of the website.

    In this episode you’ll hear about:

    • Different traditions of motherhood in children’s literature: from the saintly mother to the evil mother.
    • The absent mother, or rather, the presence of the absence of the mother.
    • Motherly sacrifices, literal and figurative.
    • Dysfunctional, bipolar, depressed, teenage mothers… and how they still love their children in spite of all.

      • Comment on this post, send us an email at [email protected] and share the podcast if you liked it. And if you have any suggestions for topics, or any questions, get in touch – we’re on Twitter too.

      And yes, this is the 11th episode, coming after the 12th episode. This is because we’re highly postmodern (and a bit confused)

      Here are some of the books we’re discussing in this episode – a full list can be found on our Books page.

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    • Episode 12: Multiculturalism in Children’s Literature, with Sita Brahmachari

      What does representing other cultures in children’s literature entail? After a (long) summer break (sorry!), we are back to discuss this important question, and not on our own! Our special co-host for this anniversary episode of Kid You Not is…

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      Sita Brahmachari. Yes, the amazing children’s author of Artichoke Hearts and Jasmine Skies, that we keep telling you about. We met her. For real. And recorded an episode with her (and her puppy Ringo, if you’re wondering what that noise in the background is).

      You can download the episode by clicking HERE (29 min), subscribe to us on iTunes, or play it in the sidebar.

      And listen to Sita tell us more about what she thinks of the complex question of multiculturalism in children’s books. In particular:

      • When dealing with mixed heritage and the encounters of different cultures, is it better to normalise or to problematise?
      • Can you write about a culture you don’t know?
      • How do young readers react to stories that stage the clashes and/or fusion of different cultural backgrounds?

        • Any comments, questions, requests? As always, post them here or email us at [email protected] ! You can also follow us on twitter @kidyounotpod.

        And here are the (brilliantly designed) covers of Sita’s books, which you should read if you haven’t already. We might be a little bit obsessed with them; just a little.

        Enjoy!

        Lauren & Clementine x

        P.S. In case you’re wondering, Episode 11 is coming… next time. Yeah. Don’t ask.

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      • Episode 10: Sex in Teenage Literature

        Everything you always wanted to know about sex in teenage literature, but were too afraid to ask your local librarian…

        In Episode 10 of Kid You Not, which is available to download

        1. HERE     

        (29 minutes), or on iTunes, or in the sidebar of the website, we discuss the omnipresence of sex in teenage literature past and present, and its dark ideological undertones…

        In this episode you’ll hear about

        • the shift from didacticism to eroticism in the representation of sex
        • chastity, virginity, NSBF, and other sexy instances of no-sex
        • pregnancy, suicide, and other merry consequences of sex in (most) teenage literature
        • why adult writers are so ambivalent about teenagers doing it, not doing it, losing it, keeping it and thinking about it.

          • And here are some of the books we’ll be discussing…

          As always, email us if you have any questions at [email protected], and follow us on Twitter @kidyounotpod!

          We hope you enjoy the episode. See you next time for a special interview!

          Lauren & Clem x

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        • Episode 9: Ideology in Children’s Literature

          But surely only bad quality children’s literature is ideological? In this episode, we debunk the usual myths about ‘ideology’ being a really awful propagandist thing that brainwashes our children. Ideology is everywhere – and it might not be the most obviously ideological children’s books that are the most ‘dangerous’…

          You can download this episode by clicking HERE, or subscribe to us on iTunes to get all the episodes automatically downloaded to your mp3 player, or you can play the episode in the sidebar!

          In this episode you’ll hear about…

          • What ‘ideology’ means, and why you’re in it with the rest of us.
          • The difference between passive and active ideology, and why the former isn’t at all the most benign.
          • Princesses that don’t want to get married, and why the promotion of gay parenting in children’s books still needs nuclear monogamous family values.

            • Email us at [email protected] if you have any comments or questions! In the meantime, here are some of the books we’ll be discussing…

             

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          • Episode 8: Non-Fiction for Children

            Apparently it’s not fiction, but then what is it? And why is it such a marginalised, and yet such a lucrative, domain in children’s publishing? In Episode 8 of Kid You Not, we discuss non-fiction for children. And as always, you can download it

            1. HERE      
            (27 min), subscribe to us on iTunes, or play it in the sidebar!

            In this episode you’ll hear about:

            • Two non-fiction editors’ opinions about what it is and what it isn’t and why it’s great, thanks to Lauren’s interviews of Caroline Royd, of Walker Books, and Rachel Cook, of Franklin Watts.
            • Clementine’s problems with the assumption that non-fiction teaches children about ‘facts’.
            • Fluffy animals, egyptology, horrible histories and dinosaurs.
            • How Michael Rosen would like to rename non-fiction, and why The Sad Book is, in fact, non-fiction.

              • Hope you enjoy the episode! and please forgive us for the slight technical problems with sound that we had on this one.

              Email us at [email protected] if you have any questions or suggestions!

              And here are some of the books or authors we’ll be talking about:

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            • Episode 6: Religion in Children’s Literature

              What is the place of religion, God, and faith in children’s books? From the origins of children’s literature to modern-day agnosticism, we discuss this controversial theme in our episode which you can download

              1. HERE     
              , or play in the sidebar (32 min).

              And if you want the next and past episodes of Kid You Not on your mp3 player just like that, subscribe to us on iTunes!

              In this episode you’ll hear about:

              • Scandalous and sulphurous blasphemy (or not) in Meg Rosoff’s There Is No Dog
              • Religion at the roots of children’s books, and its current unfashionability
              • Why religious values still permeate non-religious children’s books
              • The modern splitting of the religious life

                • and much more!

                Please post all your comments here or email us at [email protected]!

                And here are some of the books we’ll be discussing…

                 

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              • Episode 5: Why do people read paranormal romance?

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                er1-150×150.jpg” alt=”” width=”150″ height=”150″ />Paranormal or ‘dark’ romance is the literary phenomenon of the past few years in YA. But what is it that makes these books so compelling, particularly to teenagers? In this episode we discuss the main features of these books, and analyse what the fans say about them.

                Download the episode by clicking

                1. HERE     
                , or subscribe on iTunes, or play it in the sidebar!

                In this episode you’ll hear about:

                • Lauren’s secret obsession with paranormal romance and Twilight in particular, and Clementine’s attempt at analysing it psychologically.
                • Mary Sues and handsome dangerous supernatural creatures.
                • Teenage fans who are much more critical and sophisticated than you may think.
                • Why we tend to skip the end of Jane Eyre.
                • The war between sexuality and chastity.

                  • We hope you enjoy it! If you do, please spread the word…

                  As always, if you have any comments or questions, leave them on this post or email us at [email protected]

                  And here are some of the books we’ll be discussing…

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                • Episode 4: Death in Children’s Literature

                  In this episode we discuss the omnipresence of death in children’s books… trying to keep it merry and cheerful!

                  You can download the episode (30 mins) by clicking

                  1. HERE     
                  , or by subscribing to our iTunes feed, or you can listen to it online by playing it in the sidebar. So many options!

                  In this episode you’ll hear about:

                  • The books that claim to ‘teach’ children about death
                  • The books that claim that death is somehow restorative… for the living!
                  • The books that are just completely obsessed with death and therefore meant for teenagers.
                  • The books that present death in such an emotional way that Lauren cries even though they’re bad.
                  • The books about suicide that Clementine doesn’t approve of.
                  • The funny books about death.
                  • The truth about life, death and the mysteries of the afterlife inside and outside children’s literature. Maybe.

                    • Thank you so much for listening and let us know what you think, or any comments or suggestions, either here in the comments or at [email protected]

                    To assist you in your long and strenuous journey in the land of the dead, here are the covers of some of the books discussed! You can always find all of them on the Page Of All Books.


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                  • The Literary Equivalent of Clean Knickers

                     One thing an e-reader was supposed to do was to remove ‘library anxiety’ – otherwise known as the worry that people will judge you by the book you read. Unfortunately I seem to suffer from this unfortunate ailment more than ever before, since my kindle wormed its way into the heart of my commute.

                    You see, all I seem to be able to read on it, is – for lack of a better word – trash (see episode two). If I purchase something on there I deem good, I immediately have to rush out and buy a paper copy. If it is something that I know will be good, or I will read more than once, then of course I want it in a form I can lend to people. In a form that feels much more substantial than a file on an e-reader, that I can read without having to charge a battery. One of my favourite things about my kindle is that it is an ideal receptacle for books that I want to/have to read, but would never deign to give shelf space to. They are all available and there for me to read, but hidden away. Being someone who ruthlessly judges others by what they read, e-readers also perform the function of hiding the fact that I am reading a children’s book/chick lit/Twilight. I can sit on the tube, happily caught up in Alex Rider’s latest adventures or Bella’s incessant whining and no one around me is any the wiser. I could be reading War and Peace for all they know. When I started to read books like that on my kindle, the frequently judgemental looks from other passengers stopped. Any lover of children’s books who uses public transport must be well used to these ‘looks’ by now. They are usually given by women in suits.

                    However, this has given rise to a new anxiety – one that I didn’t expect. I now spend entire journeys worrying that if I died, like, right now, and all that was left to know me by was my kindle, people would think I was an uncultured, unrefined pleb whose library solely consisted of paranormal romance, Jilly Cooper-esque romps and a couple of token free classics (that the examiner would assume were unread). My spirit would be there screaming ‘go to my house! There are adult books there! Proper ones! Middlemarch and everything!’ If I was reading a print copy of the paranormal romance they might (quite rightly) speculate that I had a broad taste in reading and this was only part of it. But the many many books on a kindle could be assumed to be representative of your general taste in books….

                    This is a literary version of the always-wear-clean-knickers-in-case-you-get-hit-by-a-bus anxiety, if you will. Clearly it is unlikely that if the tube crashed the kindle would survive. And it is also clear that this all arises from my own biblio-snobbery, and if I were a little less judgemental about others I would probably be less worried about being judged myself.

                    But as I am unlikely to succeed in dropping the snobbery any time soon I will continue to worry and have a spare copy of Jane Eyre in my bag. Just in case. And nice knickers on – of course.

                    By Lauren

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                  • Episode 3: Special Interview with Jonathan Stroud

                    This episode – which you can listen to by clicking

                    1. HERE     
                    , or on the media player in the sidebar, or simply get it from iTunes – is a very, very, very special one…

                    Owing partly to the power of Twitter, we were incredibly lucky to get the opportunity to interview children’s author Jonathan Stroud, whose bestselling books include the Bartimaeus series, famous for the highly original character of the arrogant and vulnerable eponymous djinni, and Heroes of the Valley, an action-packed epic inspired from Icelandic sagas.

                    Click each cover to access the book’s own dedicated website…

                    …or click here to access Jonathan’s official website!

                    (I know, it’s like magic.)

                     

                     

                    In this exclusive interview of Jonathan Stroud, we’ve stuck to our Kid You Not focus: looking at children’s literature from the publishing side and from the academic side. Luckily, Jonathan knows a lot about both, since he has a degree in English literature and used to work as an editor at Walker Books.

                    In this special episode, you’ll hear Jonathan talk about:

                    • Why children’s literature is important!
                    • Children’s editors who are aspiring authors in hiding
                    • Why publishers are more likely to take on authors who are slightly schizophrenic
                    • The voice in his head which became Bartimaeus
                    • The truth behind stories, the reality behind fiction, and the adult liar
                    • Bartimaeus’s life beyond the books
                    • Masculine female characters
                    • Legends and myths in Heroes of the Valley
                    • Stephen Hawking summoning a demon

                      • … and much more!

                      Listen to the episode and post all your comments and questions here. As usual, we’d love to hear from you and to follow you on Twitter if you follow us @kidyounotpod!

                      Thank you so much to Jonathan for giving up some of his Saturday morning for us, and special thanks to Georgia Lawe.

                      Clementine & Lauren

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