Aesthetics of "The Westing Game" by Ellen Raskin

After hearing Dr. Chris McGee’s talk, I was immediately compelled to dive into the genre of mystery to see for myself what makes it aesthetically pleasing. The most distinct characteristic of the detective novel is its integration of clues that lead to a final conclusion – a solution to the mystery that the character(s) want to solve. But when the answer is already known, is there any pleasure to be had on a second read? To see if I could find an answer to this question, I read The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin. 

 The Westing Game describes sixteen chosen heirs of the recently deceased Samuel Westing. The person to solve the mystery of who murdered the millionaire will inherit his two-hundred-million-dollar fortune. The chosen heirs are divided into eight pairs and given clues: slips of paper with a single word or letter written on them. But these clues are deceptive. During his presentation Dr. McGee informed us that – spoiler – the only relevant clue is the four cardinal directions: north, south, east, and west. I kept an eye out for those directions but pieced them together only just before Turtle, the sole child detective, did.  

One of the text’s distinguishing features is its heteroglossia: the array of voices that are present in the novel aside from that of the narrator. Raskin cleverly designates not just one or a small group of detectives, but sixteen, ranging in age, gender, race, and physical ability. What is fascinating about this diversity is that each heir utilizes his or her own personality and outlook as tools to solve the mystery. To examine how this occurs, we will borrow the names and positions that each character provided for his or herself at the beginning of the game (45-6).  

1. MADAME SUN LIN HOO, cook 

Madame Hoo is the young wife of Mr. Hoo, who was brought from China for this marriage and does not speak English. She is not informed of the game and does not participate in riddle-solving. Her husband decided her title for her. However, in a surprising act of admission, Madame Hoo reveals herself as the thief of various missing items stolen “‘for to go to China [sic]’” (165). Her timid disposition attests to the condition of silence imposed by linguistic disadvantage: although she is a rightful heir, Madame Hoo is excluded from entry into the game by anyone who could translate for her and must resort to underhanded methods to make her desires known. 

2. JAKE WEXLER, standing or sitting when not lying down 

Jake is a Jewish podiatrist whose work meant he was not present to receive the clues and join in the game. His laidback demeanor conceals a gambling secret and largely serves to offset his stubborn wife and youngest daughter.  

3. TURTLE WEXLER, witch 

Turtle is a daring young girl who kicks first and asks later. This risky attitude makes her take the most adultlike direction with the $10,000 each pair is given – she invests it into the stock market using letters from her clues as a guide. This approach totally fails, however, because she tried to think as any adult would have, and not how a man with a childish sense of play did. 

4. FLORA BAUMBACH, dressmaker 

Flora is a grandmotherly figure who allows the Turtle to do as she pleases. Without exercising the control that any other heir would have over the willful child, her respect for the child’s imagination allowed Turtle to fail and supported her from then on. 

5. CHRISTOS THEODORAKIS, birdwatcher 

Chris is intelligent and observant, yet he cannot speak nor use his legs, which makes him overly reliant on his eyesight. Thus, he is absolutely convinced that the person he saw limping the night the murder occurred is the culprit. He is cunning and does not reveal his information right away. Chris’s inability to communicate normally means aside from his brother, no one, not even his assigned partner Dr. Deere, takes him seriously. Only Sam Westing sees his potential. 

6. D. DENTON DEERE, intern, St. Joseph’s Hospital, Department of Plastic Surgery 

Dr. Deere is a pompous surgeon whose concern for himself and his fiancée, Angela, exclude everyone else. This attitude makes it difficult for him to even conceive of his partner Chris’s abilities, and Deere stifles his own voice as a result. 

7. ALEXANDER MCSOUTHERS, doorman 

Sandy is a cheerful doorman whose job allows him to converse with all of the heirs frequently. His dimwitted yet friendly demeanor allows him to befriend Turtle and flatter his partner, Judge Ford. He sees and involves himself in more than the reader is let on to believe. 

8. J. J. FORD, judge 

Judge Ford is an African American judge, whose subjectivity as a woman of minority race leads her to be ambitious and confident to the point of being aloof. She knows Sam Westing personally because he funded her education and participates in the game out of a vengeful sense of obligation to his memory. Her sharp observation skills and ability to withhold information make her a leader among the heirs. 

9. GRACE WINDSOR WEXLER, heiress 

Grace is a housewife with little sense of purpose except to smother her eldest daughter Angela and scold her younger daughter Turtle. She is bossy and manipulative, which puts her at odds with her partner and makes them largely unproductive. 

10. JAMES SHIN HOO, restauranteur  

Mr. Hoo is a man dissatisfied with his position in life, struggling to keep a restaurant afloat and quick to form negative opinions. He is just as stubborn as his partner, which prevents him from reaching any good conclusions either. 

11. BERTHE ERICA CROW, Good Salvation Soup Kitchen 

Crow is the Sunset Towers cleaning maid, and although she hardly speaks, she loves Angela very much. She cares nothing for solving the riddle and gives her clues to Angela. Crow is somehow religious without invoking God, and her main priority is her work at the soup kitchen.  

12. OTIS AMBER, deliverer 

Otis is a man fond of jokes. He is well travelled because of his job and does not live in Sunset Towers like the other heirs do. He does not seem to take the mystery-solving very seriously. 

13. THEO THEODORAKIS, brother 

Theo is an aspiring writer who also does not have much of a sense of purpose. He cares deeply for his brother and is the only one who understands Chris. In the Westing House, he plays chess with one of the heirs, whom he doesn’t see but believes is the culprit. Therefore, his constant requests to play chess are mischaracterized as loneliness. 

14. DOUG HOO, first in all-state high-school mile run 

Doug’s major concern is running track, so he leaves all of the mystery-solving to Theo. His track abilities come in use when he is sent to observe Otis Amber, whom Theo later suspects.  

15. SYDELLE PULASKI, secretary to the president 

Sydelle clearly lacks attention and seeks it through false means such as a faked injury. Her quick thinking in taking notes of the will makes her a valuable asset to the heirs, and despite her shallow disposition, she is the first to piece together the clues that she has into the song “America the Beautiful.” 

16. ANGELA WEXLER, none 

 Angela has the compassion that her mother and sister lack, but she is stifled by their headstrong personalities. Although she as viewed as innocent immediately, her decision to take back her agency leads to her creation of bombs, the last of which detonates in her face. She allows Sydelle to take over the clue-hunting and people-pleasing while she figures herself out.  

Each heir has his or her own theories about who murdered Samuel Westing, creating a maze of crisscrossing and false trails that the reader is trapped into following. Everyone discovers more information along the way and creates judgements of others that fool the reader into laying blame on the wrong suspect. Yet none of this is necessary information to reach the intended conclusion, which is that Sam Westing is actually not dead but is alive and disguised as Barney Northrup the real estate agent, Sandy McSouthers the doorman, and Julian R. Eastman, the new chairman of Westing Paper Products Corporation.  

Another of this novel’s riveting attributes is that smaller mysteries are scattered throughout the narrative’s development – missing valuables and an unidentified bomber. These mysteries distract from the main one but reveal information about characters through the thoughts of other people towards them. Therefore, the reader is led to the riddle’s answer by deductions from Judge Ford and Sydelle Pulaski, but the only one who solves it completely is Turtle.  

Raskin weaves a complex tale full of intriguing characters. In their midst, the child who takes the most adultlike stance towards the mystery by investing the money into the stock market is the one to figure out the simple wordplay. While the reader receives even more information than the heirs do, it takes a child’s sense of determination and craftiness – as well as a personal investment – to unravel the intentions of the eccentric Samuel Westing.  

The Westing Game is, as Dr. Chris McGee put it, “infinitely rereadable.” While it certainly is complex, it remains approachable because of its simple solution. Readers are tempted to read again from each character’s point of view, keeping in mind what that heir knows as the reader is given more information through other perspectives. Although there are many voices to keep track of, they are all unique enough to not get muddled. Each personality is distinct and each person’s aspirations are clear or made clear in a way that just makes sense once the reader has gotten to know the characters. Raskin provides supremely satisfying conclusions to each of the heirs’ stories as told by Turtle to a dying Julian R. Eastman, keeping each voice true to its younger self. This also prompts readers to go back and read the younger characters in light of what they will accomplish in the future.  

As my list of aesthetic qualities in literature lengthens, I will tack on “heteroglossia” and “delight in suspense” as a result of analyzing The Westing Game.  

- (AN) 

Works Cited 

Raskin, Ellen. The Westing Game. Ebook, Speak, 2008.  

Dr. Chris McGee's "What's New in Detective Fiction for Young Readers"

What’s New in Detective Fiction for Young Readers

Hello children’s literature scholars!

On March 12, 2020, the National Center for the Study of Children’s Literature hosted Dr. Chris McGee for his talk, “What’s New in Detective Fiction for Young Readers.”

Dr. McGee teaches Children’s Literature, Young Adult Literature, and Film courses at Longwood University in Virginia. He divides his research interests between the two genres that dominated his reading as a child – horror and mystery. He writes on slasher films and contemporary horror featuring teens, but most often about Western detective fiction for young readers. He is the author of the forthcoming book Full of Secrets: Detective Fiction for Young Readers. 

Dr. McGee grew up reading The Hardy Boys, his favorite of the series being Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators, and he has always felt drawn to mystery books. His favorite three aspects of kid’s detective fiction are eavesdropping, secrets (especially secret tunnels, rooms, or corridors), and puzzles involving logic and codes. 

He has noticed that all children’s detective fiction mirrors three categories which are also seen in adult detective fiction: the classic Sherlock Holmes or Agatha Christie puzzle, a gritty and dark mystery about corruption or investigating power, otherwise referred to as a “hard-boiled” mystery, and a metaphysical mystery. The best detective fiction, says McGee, are the ones that closely mimic these three types of detective fiction. Mysteries are written with “backwards construction,” meaning the solution is conceived of and the story is written reverse chronologically.

These three mystery categories, however, are not new concepts, but they are by necessity adaptations from adult mystery novels. The “classic whodunit” is often adult-sanctioned making an adult needed to solve the mystery, the “hard-boiled” is power conscious, and the “meta-physical” is a mystery of or containing philosophy.

Dr. McGee goes more into depth on the meta-physical novel as a stylistic shift more on the questions we ask than the answers we find, such as A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Ersatz Elevator, a book constantly asking questions and repeating conventions. However, the meta-physical novel does not always pay off, like Chasing Vermeer which promises to be philosophically interesting, but instead is boring and unsolvable by a reader. 

He also argues that the best detective stories--contrary to much children’s literature scholarship that condemns didacticism--are those that are most controlled by adults. Moreso, he says an excellent mystery convinces the reader that they have put all the pieces together themselves, only to be fooled by the author. His view of some of the most excellent mysteries may surprise you: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, with both being full of key clues and secrets which are well laid out, and yet the reader is still completely fooled at the end, especially by one small clue the reader may not have thought to pay attention to.

Dr. McGee highly praises The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin as one of the best mysteries full of children. It is dense with clues and details, respects the game of the mystery story, and finally, the child character solves the mystery not for the fun of it, but because the reader wants to win and crack the case once and for all. He also enjoys mysteries that initially disguise themselves as not being a mystery, like Tangerine by Edward Bloor, a book focused on “uncovering the uncanny forgotten of his town.”

The best children’s mysteries mimic adult detective stories, but authors must be cautious to not patronize the child detective. Mystery solving is not just “cute” or “fun.”

He says the worst mysteries are didactic, condescending, and reduces a mystery down to fact-knowing instead of the sharp skills of a detective. The Red Blazer Girls is one of his examples of one of the worst mystery novels for children that he has ever read. He also does not like a condescending tone which figures child sleuthing as “cute,” as seen in Judy Moody, Girl Detective.

“Counterfeit mysteries” in children’s literature is another genre he does not enjoy. It usually involves adult experts meeting child enthusiasts, and aims to restore authority to authority, but staged as a scavenger hunt. It reinforces the idea of the artist as the sole and inimitable producer of aesthetic value, usually degrading modern art.

Thinking of a mystery novel may immediately bring to mind the classic mystery of Sherlock Holmes, and children’s mystery acknowledges this influence. McGee says the best Sherlock adaptation for children is the Enola Holmes mystery series by Nancy Springer. Springer creates the character Enola as the lesser known sister of the famous Sherlock and Mycroft Holmes. Enola plays a key role in investigations, as she has ideological access to what her brothers as men cannot see, so she finds and discovers clues only other women would know to look for, and not her brothers or other men.    

Dr. McGee highlights a few novels in which ideological values are confronted via mystery. The following books, though they might appear mediocre, challenge patriarchal norms and take on adult conventions such as murder.

Similarly, he enjoys books shifting perspective, such as When You Reach Me. To understand time travel, he says, the reader must shift their whole perspective, and ultimately the reader creates or discovers a new algorithm to think in new ways. Perhaps this point especially reveals his love of mystery, as this genre works to trick the reader and force them to think in new ways, a skill that should be shown to not just adults but children as well.

Although Dr. McGee was met with some chuckles at this slide, he argues to give rom-mysteries some thought as they initially “seem trashy, but are excellent mysteries.” These rom-mysteries involve the idea of “reading men” and going up institutionally to find out the man’s true motives. Reading men, he argues, turns attention to power in fascinating ways. 

Even if children’s mysteries are not given much attention, he says if authors are willing to do the hard work, these books can be incredibly innovative. What Dr. McGee hopes to see is a true, gritty, detective story for kids, but he is still in search of such a story.

The question and answer section of the talk addressed listener inquiries such as how well “I Can Read!” books (for example: Big Max: The World’s Greatest Detective) handle mystery-solving. Dr. McGee’s scope of research does not extend to readers, but he is eager to check out this beloved book.

Dr. Thomas asked if McGee could foresee an emergence of “writerly” detective novels in which readers are called to make meaning from the book and participate in the telling of the narrative. He notes that many mystery lovers seem to prefer “readerly” books that withhold but eventually provide answers; Lemony Snicket: The Unauthorized Autobiography is one example of a writerly book that could fall into the mystery genre. McGee says he has not necessarily found a writerly detective novel yet. Negation is needed for it to be writerly, as an author and reader cocreate this end result together. 

Referring back to McGee’s earlier comment that the detective genre is overwhelmingly white, a student asked if a potential cause might be the emulation of canonical mystery authors and characters such as Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie. McGee is disappointed in this gap and is ever-searching for diverse authorship and representation, but acknowledges that fantasy and science-fiction are the most popular contemporary genres. The Parker Inheritance by Varian Johnson then is “such a treasure” because of how it forces the child detectives to confront matters of race and history.

Another question that arose was about rereadability and aesthetics in this genre. The listener asked what aspects of the detective novel make it compelling to read after the mystery has already been solved. Dr. McGee answered that readers enjoy finding clues that were not noticed on the first read. He says one may be compelled to reread a mystery containing “retroactively high value sentences,” which are sentences that can be reread to find a new clue or meaning.

We truly enjoyed Dr. McGee’s visit to SDSU, and his talk has sparked both of our interests in exploring more mystery books, especially those for children and young adults.

-(SS) & (AN)

Dr. Naomi Hamer's "Enter Through The Gift Shop: Transmedia Storytelling and the Picture Book from Mobile Apps to Museums.”

On Wednesday February 19th, SDSU hosted Dr. Naomi Hamer for her talk, “Enter Through the Gift Shop: Transmedia Storytelling and the Picture Book from Mobile Apps to Museums.”

Dr. Naomi Hamer with Dr. Angel Matos

Dr. Naomi Hamer is an Associate Professor in the Department of English at Ryerson University and the co-author of “More Words About Pictures: Current Research on Picture Books and Visual/Verbal Texts for Young People”, as well as the co-editor for Genesis Journal. She is a children’s literature and settler scholar and studies cultural theory, identity, and audience studies, among many other exciting topics! Although she is highly knowledgeable in a wide range of topics, this specific talk focused on her book that is currently under review, Enter Through the Gift Shop: Cross-media Play with the Picture Book from Mobile App to Museum. She described the content as the “greatest hits” of her research. 

Loading screen of the Pisim App Developed by 

Dr. Hamer & Her Fellow Colleagues

As Dr. Hamer explains, picture books rarely are designed just as a singular book. Many are quickly followed by merchandise, movies, and sometimes sequels. This is where her studies of children’s literature and other forms of children’s media converge. 

Although apps on various electronic devices are often seen as in opposition to a physical book, Dr. Hamer argues against condemning technology based on the sentimentality and tradition of reading a solitary, physical book. She instead advocates for reading and analyzing apps and corresponding literature in conjunction. These apps are a new remediated form, often interacting with the real world in virtual or augmented reality, and many provide an intersection of oral storytelling and materiality. An example of this is a story app with a projector, but there are many other ways of transmedia storytelling for children that can be found just on a phone. 

There is a cultural value of picture book art, as seen in museums which feature children’s books and their authors, such as the Mo Willems traveling exhibit and The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art located in Massachusetts. However, almost all museums are heavily regulated, exemplified with iPads in exhibits locked both physically and virtually, thus limiting a child’s interaction, unlike if they were given a book or something else with a wider range of motion and exploration. Children are given the opportunity to express creativity, but in an isolated area and with limited forms.

Children’s art station at the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art. Personal Photo 2016. 

It can be suggested that these children’s museums exist more as a kind of giant advertisement than a place of learning, as suggested in the title of Dr. Hamer’s book and talk, Enter Through the Gift Shop. Sometimes, the only way of entering or leaving a museum is through, or at least walking past, the gift shop with tie-in merchandise ready for kids (and their parent’s credit card). Dr. Hamer pointed out the irony that the only interaction available to young viewers in the museum is this merchandise. 

The inspiration for the title of the talk

Moseum shop image. New York Historical Society. Personal photo 2016. 

This leads into Dr. Hamer’s work of decolonizing museums and children’s co-curatorship in museums. Framed by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada's Calls to Action, Dr. Hamer is a research collaborator on the Six Seasons SSHRC-funded Partnership Grant lead by  Dr. Mavis Reimer at the University of Winnipeg. The project aims to extend the creation of picture books and affiliated apps as part of a project of language and cultural reclamation as well as other processes of reconciliation. Here’s where her new app, Pisim, comes in. Pisim is an interactive story with rich illustrations and cultural notes, a fictionalized narrative of the young Cree woman found by archeologists in 1993. Pisim was developed in collaboration with Knowledge Keepers and Elders of the Asiniskaw Ithiniwak (Rocky Cree) communities of northern Manitoba. Available in both Cree and English, Pisim follows the journey of Pisim and her family and encourages reflection of Rocky Cree Culture. 

The menu of the Pisim app.

A page from the Pisim book that the app was based upon.

Unlike most museum exhibits, in which viewers can look at but cannot touch the art object, Pisim invites kids to immerse themselves in the object of their observation. Not only are kids given reign in the story, through conversation with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, Dr. Hamer’s team involved Indigenous children in the process of creating the app, and children are given co-curatorship in the creation. Children are invited to help test the apps and collaborate on early pilots. Indigenous children and teens are currently testing her second application that is in progress. 

The app’s narrator: a Cree elder.

Through this app, there is remediation as a process of dialogue. Children at times are led to sit and reflect on the content of the game and its real-life meaning. Turning oral stories to applications allows for more access than going to someone from a tribe, or going to a museum. 

Dr. Hamer’s talk highlighted the fascinating trend towards the “New Literacies” that are developing for children. The screen has become a medium that transmediates canonical texts and is also a place for experimentation of new content. It has found its way into museums as an attempt for interaction, but still faces limits as to user accessibility. The transmediation from book to screen remains contested, but Dr. Hamer’s lecture revealed exciting possibilities for the future of what counts as children’s literature.

-(SS) and (AN)

Aesthetics of Cicada by Shaun Tan

This semester, San Diego State University is offering an “Aesthetics of Children’s Literature” graduate seminar taught by our very own director, Dr. Joseph Thomas Jr. Of course, I signed up for it as soon as I could, hoping to get answers to the simple question of “what makes certain texts better than others?”  – only to be told that such explanations would not be given. Instead, we discussed Terry Eagleton’s concept that “part of what we mean by a ‘literary’ work is one in which what is said is to be taken in terms of how it is said” (3). Our goal this semester would be to look at how things are said – the technique or methodology that goes into the final product. As we wrapped up our fourth class session, heads heavy with the discussion of six published articles, Dr. Thomas urged, “Go find out what your aesthetic values are!”

Cicada by Shaun Tan

Emboldened by the challenge, I reread a picture book that had shocked me with its content a few weeks prior: Cicada by Shaun Tan. During the first read, it was easy to see the thin varnish of the cicada protagonist, which glossed over a forthright tale of the difficulties of Asian American assimilation into the American workforce. The parallels were clear: the diminutive, hardworking, unacknowledged main character is cast as subhuman, denied resources and a living wage, and endures it all without complaint. All of these observations deal with the book’s content, an aspect much too easy for me to home in on given my concurrent independent study work reading Lisa Lowe and James S. Moy.

Yet in class, Dr. Thomas had lectured on the two outlooks currently dominating literary criticism. The direction that most critics are taking is that in which texts are studied ideologically. When analyzing, they ask, “How does the text’s content reflect the culture in which it was written, and what would modern ideology have to say about it now?” Clearly, this is the methodology I used to examine Cicada on my first read, hastily drawing a conclusion from Tan’s personal ethnic background and eagerly impressing my own interpretation onto the cicada’s journey to molting. I hadn’t considered the other outlook, the one our graduate seminar emphasizes, which is a focus on the aesthetics of texts. Scholars using this lens would ask, “What makes a text pleasurable and beautiful?” Throughout this semester, this complex question will become my own. Therefore, I decided to test it out right away. Equipped with a few articles’ worth of information, I tackled Cicada once again to extract its aesthetic features. 

Pages 1 and 2

Pages 3 and 4

First, the artwork. Aside from a double-page spread at the beginning and three at the end, most of the spreads are split with the text on the left and a full-page image on the right. Most of the color is made up of shades of gray that never quite turn into black. This provides a strong contrast for the main character, the cicada, who is green aside from his gray suit. The cicada himself stands at half the height of humans, stretching to reach the elevator button but just small enough to fit into the office wall space he calls home. While he is always just off-center in each page, humans are always in the periphery: either walking away, turning their backs, or – in the one case a human is looking at the cicada – headless. As he goes to the roof to molt his office body and emerge as a red, winged insect, the cicada casts aside the whole narrative that he had just built. No text is needed here, for the striking visual of the red distinctly marks a rebirth and shedding of the discrimination that his green, suit-clad body had endured. Truly, the story could have been conveyed through the artwork alone. But it is not. Somehow, the narration is necessary.

Pages 22 and 23

The text itself is bland on the surface – even the cicada seems apathetic about his situation as he describes being overworked, beaten by coworkers, and ostensibly walking to the roof to commit suicide. It’s not so much that the message is hard to understand; rather, the delivery itself is short, clipped, and direct. Subject-verb agreement is rare, if both subject and verb even make into the sentence. Tiny and centered, the isolated lines connote a loneliness that elides the question of whom the cicada is telling this story to, despite his informative tone. Each page of text has three lines, followed by the mantra “Tok Tok Tok!” which makes the visual image of a quatrain. Each line has no more than two periods in it, one of which is always at the end of each line. After reading the haiku above the book details in the back, one is led to wonder if the text is made up of haikus with the “Tok Tok Tok!” added at the end, but the syllables do not match up. 

A discreet haiku

Pages 29 and 30

It is not until the very end of the book, in which a double-spread of text on a white background separates the “Tok Tok Tok!” from the three lines that always proceed it, do readers understand that it is a laughing sound. The emotionless, drab tone that had characterized the text is revealed to be the result of the “Tok Tok Tok!” sapping away all emotion into itself. On a second read, the cicada is reenvisioned as unbothered by his horrible work conditions because he himself reflects upon it with a laugh. Those three syllables obliquely contain disdain, jubilance, and an air of superiority. The cicada gets the last word and the last laugh.

Being unfamiliar with poetry and art makes approaching picture books with an aesthetic eye difficult. Yet Cicada’s direct language and underwhelming illustrations easily lent itself to a fruitful analysis. I could see how information-rich the images are, while extracting the necessity of the text for its visual impact and the change of tone that occurs between a first and second read. As I continue searching throughout the semester to figure out what makes a text aesthetically pleasing, I can add “unapparent, buried tone” and “color contrast” to my list as a result of studying Cicada by Shaun Tan.

- (AN)

Works Cited

Eagleton, Terry. How to Read Poetry. Yale University Press, 2013.

Dr. Naomi Hamer's Talk "Enter Through the Gift Shop"

Hello scholars!

We are so excited to invite you to Dr. Naomi Hamer’s talk, “Enter through the Gift Shop: Transmedia Storytelling and the Picture Book from Mobile Apps to Museums”.  Dr. Hamer’s talk will be February 19, 2020 4:00 to 5:30pm in Love Library 430. We are always so grateful for such insightful talks, and we know this one will be no different!

Dr. Naomi Hamer is an Associate Professor in the Department of English at Ryerson University. Her current research and publications examine the cross-media adaptation of children's literature with a focus on picture books, mobile apps, and children’s museums. She is the co-editor of More Words About Pictures: Current Research on Picture Books and Visual/Verbal Texts for Young People (eds. Hamer, Nodelman and Reimer, 2017), and The Routledge Companion of Fairy-tale Cultures and Media (eds. Greenhill, Rudy, Hamer, and Bosc, 2018). Her current research project (Curating the Story Museum) has been awarded a SSHRC Insight Development Grant.

This lecture presents highlights from her ongoing research on the adaptation, remediation, and commodification of picture books. This work focuses on how transmedia storytelling offers opportunities for counterpoint and disruptive narratives by authors and readers of picture books while also addressing the limitations of interactive and mobile technologies. Framed by cross-disciplinary work on transmedia storytelling and digital cultures, cross-media case studies of canonical picture books reveal the absences and omissions in the texts chosen by publishing houses, entertainment companies, and children's museums for adaptations and exhibitions focused on picture books. The lives and experiences of Indigenous youth, 2SLGBTQIA+ communities, and young people of color (and their families) are only recently featured as central to picture books, and tend to be less likely the focus for dominant cross-media franchises. This lecture particularly explores the development of the Pism Finds her Miskanow story app (2019) as well as select examples from picture book exhibitions as venues for dialogue and play with picture book narratives.

Leading up to the talk you can find Dr. Hamer on Twitter @naomihamertime to get to know her!

We look forward to seeing you there!

-(SS)

Book review on “Foul is Fair”

Partial list of content warnings for novel: mentions of rape and sexual assault (not depicted), physical violence/murder, suicide attempt/ideation, abuse, transphobia, substance abuse

Foul is Fair by Hannah Capin is full of power. This “scorching and cathartic retelling of Macbeth for the #MeToo era” is pitched as “a bloody, thrilling revenge fantasy for the girls who have had enough. Golden boys beware: something wicked this way comes.”

The Me Too Movement?

Macbeth?

Revenge?

All in a YA novel?

I’m in.

Foul is Fair follows Elle (Elizabeth Jade Khanjara) and her intoxicating group of friends: Mads, Jenny, and Summer. They remind me of “Queen Bees”, the girls so many wanted to be but never would be.

Nothing happens to those girls? Right?

Well Capin destroys expectations:

A new spin on Macbeth

A young adult novel full of both poetry and violence

A girl allowed to be powerful

By taking that power for herself.

Elle and her friends crash an elusive St. Andrew’s Prep party on her 16^th birthday, and the four expect a night of fun and partying.

Our expectations are yanked to the side when Elle is drugged, raped, and assaulted by four boys (including friends Andrew Mack and Duncan). Elle has left the party, and in her place is Jade with short black hair, painted nails, and a taste for revenge.

After putting the pieces of that night together, she lives her new life as Jade. Jade is not a victim. Jade turns her entire life around, takes her life back, and to my shock, enrolls in St. Andrew’s: the school of her rapists. Jade slips into her new school seamlessly, saying all the right things to get the popular friends, and dating the oh-so popular Andrew. Yes, Andrew Mack. Jade and Andrew, or Lady Macbeth and Macbeth, rule the school now, but this never distracts Jade from her goals.

In an unapologetically bold yet poetic prose, we watch Jade create her own power to dismantle the golden boys one by one.

The writing of this book truly draws you in from the first line: every sentence appears to be perfectly crafted and thought out, so much so some of this book would not leave me three months after I finished the book.

I love how upfront this book is, how Capin doesn’t shy from brutality. Jade doesn’t just dismantle the golden boys:

She kills them.

I’m going to be honest: I don’t know how a group of high school girls get away with multiple murders of teen boys, but Capin’s writing is so captivating that I don’t care. I am so invested in Jade’s story, and Capin has drawn me in to that amazing point where I am able to suspend belief of high school murders. I’ve just accepted Jade is the reincarnation of Lady Macbeth but she has a cellphone and red lipstick and potentially a bit more of a thirst for blood. Jade could murder someone, and I’d just go with it.

Oh right. She did.

Or, she convinces her boyfriend Mack to kill Duncan. Sound familiar?

With Macbeth, we need witches, and that’s where the best friends Mads, Jenny, and Summer come in. Mads, Jade’s best friend, since the days of skinned knees, Summer, the supermodel embodiment of summer, and Jenny, “so sweet she’ll kill you” (5).

Come not within the measure of their wrath.

Together, the four of them cast spells on boys with the bat of their winged eyeliner.

Mads is a really engaging character, and I appreciate the subtle inclusion of the history of their relationship: “When her parents still called her by her deadname and the only time she could wear girl-clothes was when she was with me. Mads, who last night was the only one I could think about once I could finally stand without falling…Mads, who knew what happened without me saying anything, and found a pair of lacrosse sticks in the pool house and together we broke all the windows we could find, and the glass shattered and caught in the nets and our hands bled bright and furious” (6). The friendship of Mads and Jade shines with complete, undeniable love, and Mads is the first to back up Jade. Honestly, we all need a Mads.

The complete sisterhood the girls create is admirable. No matter what, they will always be there for one another. “Mads tips her head toward mine and I do the same. Until we’re foreheads-together, eye to eye, no room for lies. ‘You tell me when you need me.’ I say, ‘I don’t need anyone.’ She laughs, but it’s the most beautiful sound in the world. She says, ‘I know.’” (81)

Foul is Fair challenges the concept on a demure sidelined woman character: Jade is full of ferocity and I love it. She never has to explain her anger to her friends; they accept what has happened to her and in their world, what needs to be done. Although I don’t condone this sort of violence necessarily, it makes for a great book, and an amazing rise of awareness for sexual violence.

I truly loved this book, and I look forward to Capin’s promising future in writing. I highly recommend you check out Foul is Fair and keep an eye out for her future books.

I received a free ARC from Goodreads in exchange for an honest review. Some sites say Foul is Fair was released 2/4/20, and Amazon says it will be available 2/18/20. Keep an eye out!

-SS

Works Cited:  

Capin, Hannah. Foul Is Fair. Wednesday Books, 2020.

A full list of content advisories can be found here: https://www.hannahcapin.com/foulisfair