The Fairy Tale of Love Day's Simulation

With the hallmark day of love approaching, there are usually two groups of people that begin to emerge. The first group are those who love being in love, buying things for those they love, and waiting to get that special treat from the person they love; while the second group are the ones who say bah-humbug to another corporatized holiday.

The Disney corporation has most certainly assisted in this holiday’s grandeur with all the “happily ever afters” and “true love’s kiss” ideology—an over-exaggerated romance aimed at young audiences but still capture that “Aw, how sweet” from the adults that continue to buy these films for their children. Disney is also partially responsible for the perceived realities of gender roles, marriage, and love through so many of their early feature length animations—what Jean Baudrillard of course defines as the simulacra. But perhaps it goes back further than Disney, to the beginning of publishing fairy tales—tales of oral tradition that resonated with folk culture making its way into fancy, upper-class parlors and salons merely as prizes of entertainment.

Historically, both oral and literary fairy tales were used to overcome the terror of bestiality and barbaric forces that challenged “free will and human compassion.”  The way the protagonist overcomes, changes, or improves a terrifying villain or situation into fortune, happiness, or tranquility shows the way socio-psychological mechanisms become accepted as ideologies that define what is right and wrong, good and bad, beautiful and grotesque. Jack Zipes points out that it is the sense of wonder in these functions that distinguishes fairy tales from other literary works that transform them into agents of ideology. Wonder quoted from The Oxford Universal Dictionary, “the emotion excited by the perception of something novel and unexpected…” can also be linked to a fantasy of utopia that becomes like a memory within the emotions created by these stories (When Dreams Come True 1–4).

Among the first popular publications of fairy tales were the collections written by the Grimm Brothers, and like Charles Perrault, they wrote down folk tales passed down orally over generations. One Grimm story that is interesting to look at for its innuendos on following dominant social practices is “Clever Hans.” This story demonstrates the dominant ideologies working to oppose anything that suggests the grotesque or folk culture—anything acting out of upper class sophistication. The story was written as a dialogue between the characters, which provides a unique view of only the characters without external forces, which exposed more of the childlike innocence Hans’s character brings. Hans is a symbol of what becomes of someone who cannot understand or follow social norms, which presents them as an adult that is not ready to do adult things in society—a character perhaps highly relatable for children.

The dialogue goes like this:

Hans's mother asks, "Where are you going, Hans?"

Hans answers, "To Gretel's."

"Behave yourself, Hans."

"Behave myself. Good-bye, mother."

"Good-bye, Hans."

Hans comes to Gretel's. "Good day, Gretel."

"Good day, Hans. Are you bringing something good?"

"Bringing nothing. Want something."

Gretel gives Hans a needle.

Hans says, "Good-bye, Gretel."

"Good-bye, Hans."

Hans takes the needle, sticks it into a hay wagon, and walks home behind the wagon.

"Good evening, mother."

"Good evening, Hans. Where have you been?"

"At Gretel's."

"What did you take her?"

"Took nothing. Got something."

"What did Gretel give you?"

"Gave me a needle."

"Where is the needle, Hans?"

"Stuck in the hay wagon."

"That was stupid, Hans. You should have stuck the needle in your sleeve."

"Doesn't matter. Do better."

The story continues in the same patter of dialogue that is silly, and the reader is entertained by his “stupidity.” Hans goes to Gretel several more times and returns with items she gives him but always does what his mother tells him to do with the previous item. In the last part of the story, Hans brings Gretel home like a calf and ties her in the barn, because that is what his mother had told him to do that with a calf he had previously brought home. His mother tells him he has done wrong and to cast friendly eyes on her. The last lines in the story read: “Hans goes into the stable, cuts out the eyes of all the calves and sheep, and throws them in Gretel's face. Then Gretel becomes angry, tears herself loose and runs away. She is no longer Hans's bride.” 

Gretel’s character symbolizes the dominant culture, the normative ideologies that expose others who do not learn to docilely follow along, and Hans’s character perhaps represents the grotesque realism of Carnival—a symbol that acknowledges the child and uncivilized. Together the couple demonstrates how these worlds cannot exist together. The last statement shows that working against the “real” social order, one will only be left alone to suffer the loss of a loving spouse—ideology’s mode of interpellation. Hans loses a bride because assimilation is required of an individual in order to exist within the world where social order dominates the average lifestyle. In Hans’s story, he cannot grasp the logical adult order which defines him as more of an outcast or still too childish. His character demonstrates a failure in basic development that society relies on to maintain the dominant culture and the apparatuses that support it. Those who do not accept basic ideologies become laughing stock, the Scrooges or ones who wear black on Valentines day, but this only shows how the judgments of the dominant social order simulate its own aesthetics and ideologies to keep making “true love’s kiss” at the end of “happily ever after” such a desirable thing.

Notes:

• "Clever Hans" by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
• Jean Baudrillard Simulations
• Jack Zipes Wiki

I am Me: An Unlikely Princess Against the Spectacle

Recently (say within the last 30 or so years), fairytales have been getting criticized left and right and from all sides. Feminists scholars, bloggers, and even vloggers, have left no shell unturned, no coral unexplored, when it comes to critiquing the popular folktales from the perspective of modern feminism. These stories have shaped many a young girl’s romantic expectations, with their portrayals of adolescent waiting and dreaming, romanticizations of marriage, bondage to the father before their prince comes along, and, probably the most referenced and criticized aspect of fairytales, the princess’ reliance on external rescue.

There’s no surprise, then, that fairy tale retellings are popular among children and young adult authors and this popularity exposes a complicated ideology many feminist would say needs to be reevaluated among modern fairy tales. I’d attribute this popularity, in part, to one of the most successful novels to come from this genre: Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine. Up until now, I haven’t found a fairy tale retelling that could possibly compete with it because, let’s face it, that’s a pretty high bar to set — unless you count the Shrek movies. However, buying a copy of Soman Chainani’s The School for Good and Evil from Powell’s Books in Portland was the best decision I ever made in 2015.

The book begins with best friends, Sophie and Agatha, who have very different reactions to being kidnapped and whisked away to the fabled School for Good and Evil. Self-proclaimed “most beautiful girl” in their town of Gavaldon, Sophie has dreamed of this day for a long time—she’s going to earn her high marks at the School for Good and become a full-fledged princess, just as she believes she deserves. But fortune’s not quite so clear-cut and command-able as that. Sophie, with her giant pink dress and long, golden hair, is dropped onto Evil Shore, while Agatha ends up on the other side in Good, and the two must live through the fairy tale in order to get out of it.

The School for Good and Evil is filled with everything that you’d want out of a fairy tale retelling and so much more. It’ll even please fans of the Harry Potter series, with its talk of houses and common rooms and class schedules like Beautification and History of Villainy. There are princes and princesses, good is pitted against evil in classic fairy tale fashion, and it first seems like lines are very cut and clean with princesses still waiting for their prince to rescue them. And suddenly you think, “Wait. This is actually a major problem, right?” And you’d be correct.

There is a great deal at stake in what is geared toward young audiences, and subconsciously, children, especially young girls, can transfer into their lives cultural norms that do nothing but exalt passivity, dependency, and self-sacrifice as a female’s cardinal virtues.

So underneath the complex plot, the snark and the witty hilarious moments in this novel express the heteronormativity common in fairy tales, dragging it into the light and exposing its ugliness, especially when it comes to the “Good Side” of the school, which turns out to be only a hollow, superficial beauty. Read through the lens of Guy Debord’s “Society of the Spectacle,” the students of this school are all focused on regurgitating the school’s idea of who they should be, which Chainani positions as the spectacle.

The author draws a parallel between the authority figures of the school and the numerous adults who inhabit a young person’s life. Parents teach their children the values they hold important, as their own parents did for them, but what else is subtly coded in those values that more-often-than-not are asking children to conform themselves to a certain standard? When Chainani acknowledges this disjunction in Sophie’s definition of beauty and virtue, he is setting up that where we are going as a society is- The School for Good and Evil. The school resembles a society that is dominated by the spectacle, which simultaneously boxes up young people in a false binary based on superficial characteristics, like beauty and gender stereotypes, because it will maintain the heteronormative status quo—boys will be princes and girls will be princesses, but there are repercussions for students failing. And that is where this novel turns dark and eerie. Agatha realizes this before Sophie does, as she stumbles upon the Gallery of Good and “taxidermied creatures loom[ing] over her, stuffed and mounted on rosy pink walls. She dusted off their plaques to find the booted Master Cat, Cinderella’s favorite rat, Jack’s sold-off cow, stamped with the names of children who weren’t good enough to be heroes or sidekicks or servants” and when she catches sight of the beanstalk: “HOLDEN OF RAINBOW GALE. That wretched plant had once been a boy.” The mentality of sexism and homogenization is dramatized into this literal process of objectification. Like Debord says of the nature of the spectacle, it has to erase identity in order to continue on with its exploitation of the spectator (the individual).

While readers typically wave away the supernatural elements in fantasy novels, what is left is ultimately the reality within the spectacle: that what is at stake is individual identity and agency within identity in order for Sophie, Agatha, and others to be themselves. One example of this is Sophie’s mindless readiness to embody the ideology—being the princess—at any cost, even at the dissolution of her individual identity and her friendship with Agatha, though she is the one trying to get them home, which seems ridiculous, but when mirrored with our social reality, the idea is not so farfetched from the lengths young people go to fit media standards. By exaggerating the spectacle, which is an authorial force, to make it out to be ridiculous to the reader, it destabilizes its power, and makes it perhaps a little easier to think critically about and resist the spectacle.

Moreover, Agatha is one of the most fleshed-out characters I have encountered in a young adult novel in a while, and is what makes her the ideal candidate for critical resistance to the status quo at the school is her ability to have sensitivity and empathy for other people, not just for herself. She embodies the critical discourse, asking the question about whether there is the possibility of resistance. Agatha is emotionally and intellectually equipped to see the propaganda put forth by The School for Good and Evil for what is—an exposition of all that is wrong with what society teaches us to take at face value. Her greatest power, what makes her a true princess among the other girls is her power to grant wishes, and this is no more personified than in the class for Communication with Animals. In trying to communicate her wish to a magical fish (as all animals serve princesses), the process goes awry:

“The fish swelled into a ballooning black mass, creeping up her hand [. . . ] and sucked her deeper like a gelatinous grave, stifling her last breaths, leeching her every last drop of life until there was nothing left to—
 Give.
 Agatha fell back in shock.
 In her arms was a girl. No more than twelve or thirteen, with toffee skin and a tangle of dark curls. She stirred, opened her eyes, and smiled at Agatha as if she were an old friend. ‘A hundred years, and you were the first who wished to free me.’”

Soman Chainani empowers young readers to reach out as Agatha has with a power that is inherently within them but is stifled away by the dominant culture. And maybe readers will go into other books with the same eye for how those novels contribute or try to resist dominant ideologies.  

Is a Spindle just a Spindle?

Have you ever stopped to wonder why is a spindle used to put the sleeping curse on the princess in the Sleeping Beauty stories? It is a bit curious, since knowing how to spin wool into yarn is not a skill that is required of a princess, so her interactions with the spinning wheel and spindle would have been minimal in her lifetime. For the time period that this story is deeply rooted in, this practical skill would have been beneath someone of royal blood. Even current adaptations of these stories show that a princess’s important attributed are more frivolous. Rika Tóth states although these high-born “heroines are not without talent – they play musical instrument, compose poetry, and draw – these talents do not have the slightest practical use.” So why does the spindle become the object of choice? Could it be that it is a critique of the noble woman’s lack of practicality other than producing an heir?

The association of the spindle with domesticity comes from early traditions where families would sit by the hearth and listen to the grandmother's tale, which is spun like the fibers of the very yarn she is making. However, this association with the happy family is lost when one puts it in context of Sleeping Beauty, who is subjugated by this weapon. Not only is this an intrusion on the domestic space, but it is also an imposition on the female identity. Domesticity and the identity of a mother are seen as confinement that trap women into a mold and rob them of any other way of life, reducing them to mere productive or reproductive units. This is especially true of the noblewomen who had no practical skills to sustain an independent lifestyle.  

One only needs to stop and look at the phallic shape of the spindle to further associate the creation of a forced domestic identity with an encroachment on a woman’s right to choose what she wishes to do with her body and with her life. The ignorant princess is unaware of the dangers the spindle possesses and is tricked into pricking her finger. This pricking and the bleeding that ensues can be read as a figurative rape of the naïve girl. In an allegorical reading, it can also represent the forced conformity to a domestic identity for women. While this type of violation on the female body is often associated with patriarchal power, it a woman who instigates the “rape” of the princess in this story.

But why would a woman choose to subjugate a young girl?

The fairy or witch who curses the princess does so, in most retellings, because she is insulted that she did not receive an invitation to the celebration of the baby’s birth while the other fairies did. In more recent retellings, there is some attempt at justifying the reason for this exclusion. The Grimm Brothers wrote that the King chose to invite 12 out of the 12 “Wise Women” in the kingdom because “he had only twelve golden plates for them to eat out of.” Charles Perrault writes that for the baby’s christening “all the fairies that could be found in the realm (they numbered seven in all) were invited to be godmothers to the little princess,” but then during the ceremony an aged fairy enters, “whom no one had thought to invite—the reason being that for more than fifty years she had never quitted the tower in which she lives, and the people had supposed her to be dead or bewitched.” Disney’s adaptation of Sleeping Beauty implies Maleficent was not invited because she was evil and in their latest movie release, Maleficent has a dark history with the king. In each of these cases, the exclusion that the uninvited guest experiences implies she does not belong at the celebration of new life and new family.

Deemed unfit to join the family celebration, the dark fairy/witch is excluded from having a domestic relationship with the rest of the kingdom. So it makes sense that she chooses a spindle to carry out her curse: Not only is it a symbol of the domestic identity of women, but it also represents a tradition of disempowerment that is passed down from mother to daughter through the simple act of storytelling. Repeated tales of passive women who fulfill their gender roles provide no real value to women who wish for a life other than the domestic. Instead, these women are marked as abject and deemed unfit to join society due to their non-normativity. With this frame of mind, we can see that the fairy/witch is actually cursing the princess for her inclusion in the domestic space with the item that is used in reference to the domesticated woman. 

The Grimm Brother’s Surprisingly Terrifying Authentic Fairy Tales Recent Translation By Jack Zipes

As many of you probably already know (and if not this will be quite a surprise), the Grimm Brothers were the authors of many well-known folktales past down over generations. Many of these tales have been adapted into sweet movies of lovely princesses and songs that provoke nostalgic memories. The original published stories, however, were nothing like this. They were, dark and twisted, filled with scenarios of murder, greed, lust, death, and even rape.  Silly to think those stories adapted by Disney are so precious, right?

In a recent article for the Irish Times,Jack Zipes (acclaimed author of several books discussing fairy tales in society today such as Breaking the Magic Spell: Radical Theoriesof Folk and Fairy Tales and Why FairyTales Stick: The Evolution and Relevance of a Genre), talks about the contradictions and distortions these modern versions hold. He points out how there are dark images and descriptions in the original publications and how these new versions are probably opposite to the intentions of the Grimm Brothers original publications. He emphasizes that the original published fairy tales were not originally meant for a child audience and also never intended to become great works of children’s literature. Interestingly, the stories originated from European, Middle Eastern, and Asian tales passed down orally over generations and most of the stories did not even contain fairies.

Zipes states, “Clearly, if [the Grimm Brothers] were living today, they would be shocked to discover how their tales have been misread and hyped and spread throughout the world in all sizes and shapes, not to mention in films and TV programs that might make them shudder.”

From Rapunzel

To clarify just how different these versions of the fairy tales are, here are two examples:

In the Grimm’s version of Rapunzel, a husband steals from the garden of a witch to satisfy his pregnant wife’s brutal pregnancy cravings. When the husband is caught stealing ‘rampion’ from the garden, he is forced to give the witch his daughter, who then grows into the most beautiful girl with long golden hair. The witch locks her in a tower on her twelfth birthday that has neither stair nor doors. A prince wandering through the forest sees the witch call to Rapunzel to let down her hair one day and upon her departure mimics the call to the dame at the top of the tower. They fall in love and the prince impregnates Rapunzel. The witch finds out and in her anger cuts off Rapunzel’s hair and put her out into the forest to fend for herself. The next time the prince comes to visit, the witch pretends to be Rapunzel and ultimately throws him from the tower, blinding him when he lands face-first in a thorny bush. He wanders around for years blinded until one day Rapunzel, who has now given birth to twins, finds him and they are reunited.

         This is exceptionally different from the Disney movie version where Rapunzel starts out as a princess and the witch is the villain of this version. The prince's character in the Disney movie is a thief-outlaw and together they defeat the evil witch and return to the king and queen, who have missed their daughter for eighteen years. Then once the outlaw-thief gives up his bad ways, he and Rapunzel get married and live happily-ever-after.

The Grimm’s version of SleepingBeauty is sort of similar to the Disney version, expect for the whole second part of the story that gets cut out of the movie. After the prince rescues the princess from her hundred years of sleep, in the story, he does not go and fight an evil dragon fairy, but instead marries the princess and they have two children. His mother, the queen, is a terrible evil ogre who is very jealous of the princess and the children and desires to eat them for her dinner. She demands that the cook kill and serve them to her. The cook hides them in his house and instead uses different animal meats to disguise the dinner she thinks she is having. The queen ends up finding out the trick and as she is preparing to throw the kids and the princess into a pit with snakes and vipers, the prince arrives just in time to save the day. Disney probably assumed that mothers wouldn’t be so satisfied with a story that portrays them as an evil ogre. So they simply cut out that ‘unnecessary’ part of the story and included their own ending, which they could gain more profit from about fifty-five years later by creating a movie version of the villain, Maleficent.

 

If these original versions have caught your attention, check out Jack Zipes’s recently published The Original Folk and Fairy Tales of theBrothers Grimm from Princeton University Press. This collection is translated from the last original edition of the Grimm Brother’s fairy tales and is one that will bring up many hot conversation starters next time someone brings up a Disney movie, song or princess.

Sources and Notes:

• Irish Times article: http://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/jack-zipes-on-those-saucy-grimms-fairy-tales-your-mother-never-told-you-1.2034660
• Other fun facts: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/12/the-real-story-behind-eve_n_4239730.html
• Sleeping Beauty Summary: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleeping_Beauty
• Rapunzel Summary:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapunzel
• Jack Zipes's New Book: The Original Folk and Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm

Visual Stimulation -- Minimal and Visionary

I've come across some striking visuals in the past month or so that deserve some sharing. Whether offering new visions of firmly established children's literature or an entry point into the perspective of children themselves, these images can be delightful, unsettling, and provocative.

Firstly, The Unjournal of Children's Literature currently features the work of Christian Jackson, whose minimalist approach to children's stories remind the viewer of the emotion of certain elements in each story, while occasionally twisting our understanding of it as well, with provocative texture and muted but engaging colors. He has recently added a new collection of children's story-inspired works, including Beauty and the Beast, the Frog Prince, and Chicken Little. My favorite of this collection is Peter Pan, though.

 

The muddy green backdrop evokes the natural wildness of Neverland along with the greenness of youth. Golden granules of sand depict iconic fairy dust as well as the essence of time--a hidden, undisclosed source that offers ceaseless life with no boundaries. The dust pops from the background in a vivid combination that illustrates eternal youth. Pretty cool, in my opinion.

Continuing this exploration of minimalist renderings of stories, I came across a collection of animated, minimal-style gifs for each of the seven Harry Potter books. Graphic Artist Jeca Martinez takes on the same challenge as Jackson by transforming well-known children's stories into condensed images (her blog demonstrates a fascination with Disney film versions of many fairy tales too). Her Harry Potter renderings evoke a sense of the magic in the books themselves, but I wonder what the effect would be without the animation. I find it noteworthy that the classic versions of fairy tales lend themselves to a distanced kind of minimalism by Jackson (the color and textures feel much older in time, just like the stories themselves) whereas these contemporary stories are ensconced in an art more evocative of technology, from the animation, bright bold color, and sharp lines.

Finally, a mother collaborates with her daughter to create a synergized view of adults in a child's world. Artist Mica Angela Hendricks draws expressive faces and lets her 4-year-old daughter add life and limb to the heads. Mica adds color once her daughter is done, occasionally listening to her daughter's recommendations, to create wondrous visions that make one wonder exactly what it is children think, imagine, and feel.

You can read the artist's blog to discover the lessons learned from collaborating with her child. Ultimately, who is the real visionary here?

Princess Culture and Consumerism

In light of the fairy tale discussions we've had on the blog this week, this link is an excellent example of one of the many ways fairy tales show up in society.

These Disney-princess-themed rings run between $1000 and $5000 a pop. Oh, heck yeah.

Except...these aren't actually sold by the jeweler who designed these rings. At first I was going to point out that I came to these rings by way of a post on Jezebel.com, which said that these ring designs already existed in the jeweler's inventory before the ol' fantasy lyrics were engraved inside the band. But further investigation revealed that these rings are an invention of the site http://heckyeahdisneymerch.tumblr.com.

It's still an interesting example of how commodified fairy tales are now. Even if these rings aren't being marketed by the jeweler as Disney princess rings (I wonder if they soon will be?), the existence of this as an idea calls to mind questions about "princess culture." It also reminded me of this Disney bridal collection by Alfred Angelo:

There are dozens of Disney-inspired dresses, and if you'll notice, the first line of the "about" paragraph tells you that "Your Fairy Tale Awaits..." It's fascinating that marketers pull on the happy ending trope by implying that the wedding is the end goal. You'll have your fairy tale wedding, and that's all that matters. You know how in fairy tales it ends with a big lavish sparkly wedding? Yeah! That could be you! Your wedding day is your chance to be a princess!

I could write a lot more incensed prose about how problematic it is to link the wedding day with being a princess and how that just feeds into the Wedding Industrial Complex and how a fancy billowy gauzy ethereal princess wedding is not the most important moment in a relationship and how your wedding day is ONE DAY and so on and so forth. But I won't, because it's Friday, and I've had a long week.

But before I sign off, I do want to pose the question of why fairy tale wedding dresses and jewels are so popular. What is it about the pervasiveness of princess culture that these items exist for grown women to purchase? As someone who was never wildly into Disney princesses, I'll admit that I have no personal connection with this. Is it because it evokes childhood happiness? Is it because in spite of our progressive times, many women still subconsciously want to be beautiful princesses who are revered for their exquisiteness, because that's what we're so often taught in mainstream children's media?

What do you think?

P.S. There is going to be a panel at PAMLA about princess culture; I really hope someone talks about Disney and the wedding industry. 

Art, Inspiration, and Adaptations

First, a brief announcement that the Museum trip with the ChildLit GSA has been cancelled, but if you want to check out the Maurice Sendak exhibit on your own, you have until April 28th! And if you do, feel free to share your experience and review of it.

In fact, there are always interesting exhibits and events going on all over the place, if you know where to look. Case in point, the Gallery Nucleus in Alhambra has had some really intriguing exhibits in the past. It's always frustrating to learn about these after the fact, like the Tribute to Wizard of Oz collection; however, one can at least view the pieces and artwork online to get a taste of the exhibit. Their upcoming gallery exhibit, starting oh-so-coincidentally on May 4th, is "A Saga in the Stars: a Tribute to a Galaxy Far, Far Away," featuring artwork inspired by the Star Wars franchise. I wonder what this exhibit will have transformed into once Disney's own life force reincarnates the saga into a never-ending series?

Speaking of Disney, a short piece of Huffington Post today discusses the malleability of fairy tales in every generation, mentioning the domination of Disney in children's minds. Liesl Shurtliff writes, "Fairy tales have survived for generations, not just because of their symbolic nature, but because they are flexible. We can shift point-of-view, draw different conclusions, and even change the events of the tale to make them more meaningful to our current social, political, and moral points-of-view." What follows are a series of "successful" adaptations... Do you agree with the arguments for these adaptations? What would you include?

Cinderella In Pictures Through the Ages

I'm writing about Marissa Meyer's Cinder for my thesis, and I've been looking at the different iterations of Cinderella through the years. I love how various illustrations/images of Cinderella reflect the time period in which they were created. Check out this progression from the 1800s until today:

George Cruikshank (1792-1878)

Arthur Rackham (1867-1939)

Harry Clarke (1889-1931)

Walt Disney (Film: 1950)

The New Yorker (1993)

Dina Goldstein (2009)

And for giggles (and related to that last image), let's not forget Kristen Wiig's hilarious drunk Cinderella:

Finally, there is some wonderful fan art on the internet for Marissa Meyer's Cinder (2012), whose Cinderella character is a working-class cyborg mechanic with metal limbs. I'm especially fond of this image:

Links for a Friday morning

I've been hoarding some particularly interesting links to share here. Read on for news about celebrity authors, 19th-century comics, gay characters in YA, and more.

Just because they can, does that mean they should? Apparently Jason Segel ("How I Met Your Mother," "Freaks and Geeks", various Judd Apatow films) has written a series of three YA novels that are "about kids facing their biggest fears." I dunno. I generally feel skeptical about literature written by actors.

The last decade has seen a surge in children's books about "non-traditional" families. This article from Jezebel takes a look at some of the most significant.

This website houses a digital collection of British comics from 1873-1939. I'm especially fascinated by the Tramps & Oddballs category.

The Atlantic Wire has a wonderful piece exploring queerness in YA literature. The article, "A New Way for Gay Characters in YA," briefly traces the history of gay characters in YA and asks for recommendations in the comments for books they may have missed.

And speaking of authors featured in the aforementioned Atlantic Wire piece, David Levithan wrote a thoughtful essay reflecting on writing Boy Meets Boy in the early aughts.

This is an interesting slideshow of famous authors as teenagers. Almost all of them look preternaturally mature to me. Is that a trick of vintage photography or old souls shining through?

I am really bummed about this tepid review of Strands of Bronze and Gold by Jane Nickerson. It's a retelling of Bluebeard, and y'all know how I love my fairy tale retellings. But this reviewer found it lacking, and considering that I generally agree with Leila's reviews, I am now less excited to read this. Hmmm...

Okay, this one isn't really child lit related, but you have to take a look at this "where are they now?" slideshow of 31 child stars. Atreyu and Sebastian are on here!