Essay - Children's Literature Aimed at Young Children Poses A Unique Challenge...

Children's literature aimed at young children poses a unique challenge for an individual attempting to *****alyze a work of fiction. Normally, the student of fiction can quote from the text with a re*****sonable expectation that the attitude ***** ***** text ***** be conveyed to the reader of the essay. Simply by reading the selected, quoted passage the reader of the essay ought to get a sense of ***** book. However, when discussing a picture book, conveying the tone of a ***** becomes more difficult bec*****use the illustrations and ***** words are inexorably linked. Often, to a very young or pre-literate child reading the book, the pictures are even more important than the words.

The Stinky Cheese Man and O*****r Fairly Stupid Tales (featuring "Little Red Running Shorts" as one of its tales) was written by Jon Sciezka and illustrated by Lance Smith. It is an interesting example of th***** phenomenon of how in much of *****'s *****; a ***** cannot be separated ***** the illustrations that accompany it. It is an elaborately illustrated picture *****, ***** the illustrations cr*****ically impact the way ***** the reader experiences ***** text. It is also a parody of certain elements ***** children's literature and of fables ***** thus it contains ***** that can only be understood by an adult. The jokes both function on a literal level that p*****der to children and delights children with grossness and m*****behavior. It also delights adults in the cleverness it s*****s in making fun of the morality of ***** tales. Yet for both children and adults, *****y must see what is depicted as well as read the words to understand the book's intenti*****s.

***** to children is often th***** of as an intellectually or morally 'improving' activity. But ***** Stinky ***** Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales not only parodies this **********, but parodies the very notion ***** ***** alto*****her. Rather than having a convention*****l title page, a t*****ble of contents, end cover, and front cover, the narrator makes fun of these typical literary conventions. Characters, rather ***** being confined to conventional places in their proper stores, escape both the linear form of *****ir narratives and the constructions of the ***** themselves, seemingly breaking out of the pages ***** their tales as well as the text that tells ***** tale. The illustrations reinforce the ***** in *****ir cutout style quality. Parody is itself a kind of 'cut-*****nd-paste' narrative style of a real*****tic form, and the highly detailed yet surreal cut-and-paste texture ***** the illustration is thus a perfect match for the text. The images of the characters look fairly realistic, but ***** way they are apparently superimposed upon the page does not look real. There is a darkness in color palate and *****ure of the illustrations that does not seem quite childlike, ***** ***** not look like a sh*****ded, full-perspective ***** illustration, either.

There is a narrator to the text, but the narra*****r only reinforces the attitude ***** ***** *****, making fun of the appearance of ***** *****s,