My Science School

The Chronicles of Narnia, a series of seven children’s books by C.S. Lewis: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (1950), Prince Caspian (1951), The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (1952), The Silver Chair (1953), The Horse and His Boy (1954), The Magician’s Nephew (1955), and The Last Battle (1956). The series is considered a classic of fantasy literature and has influenced many other fantasy works.

Lewis dedicated the first book to his goddaughter Lucy Barfield and gave her name to the fictional Lucy Pevensie, who—with her siblings Peter, Susan, and Edmund—figures as a character in the series. Most Lewis scholars agree that it is preferable to read the books in order of publication. They were originally illustrated by Pauline Baynes. Books from the series have also been adapted several times for radio, television, stage, and film productions.

In the United States, the publication rights were first owned by Macmillan Publishers, and later by HarperCollins. The two issued both hardcover and paperback editions of the series during their tenure as publishers, while at the same time Scholastic, Inc. produced paperback versions for sale primarily through direct mail order, book clubs, and book fairs. HarperCollins also published several one-volume collected editions containing the full text of the series. As noted below (see Reading order), the first American publisher, Macmillan, numbered the books in publication sequence, whereas HarperCollins, at the suggestion of Lewis's stepson, opted to use the series' internal chronological order when they won the rights to it in 1994. Scholastic switched the numbering of its paperback editions in 1994 to mirror that of HarperCollins.

 

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The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, children’s book written by L. Frank Baum and first published in 1900. A modern fairy tale with a distinctly American setting, a delightfully levelheaded and assertive heroine, and engaging fantasy characters, the story was enormously popular and became a classic of children’s literature. However, by the late 20th century the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz had become more familiar than the book on which it was based.

The story chronicles the adventures of a young farm girl named Dorothy Gale in the magical Land of Oz after she and her pet dog Toto are swept away from their home in Kansas by a cyclone. The book is one of the best-known stories in American literature and has been widely translated. The Library of Congress has declared it "America's greatest and best-loved homegrown fairytale." Its groundbreaking success, and that of the Broadway musical adapted from the novel led Baum to write thirteen additional Oz books that serve as official sequels to the first story.

The book was illustrated by Baum's friend and collaborator W.W. Denslow, who also co-held the copyright. The design was lavish for the time, with illustrations on many pages, backgrounds in different colors, and several color plate illustrations. In September 1900, The Grand Rapids Herald wrote that Denslow's illustrations are "quite as much of the story as in the writing". The editorial opined that had it not been for Denslow's pictures, the readers would be unable to picture precisely the figures of Dorothy, Toto, and the other characters.

 

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Christopher Robin is a 2018 American fantasy comedy-drama film directed by Marc Forster and written by Alex Ross Perry, Tom McCarthy, and Allison Schroeder, from a story by Greg Brooker and Mark Steven Johnson. The film is inspired by A. A. Milne and E. H. Shepard's Winnie-the-Pooh children's books and is a live-action/CGI follow-up of the Disney franchise of the same name. Plans of a live-action Winnie the Pooh adaptation were announced back in April 2015, and Forster was confirmed as the director in November 2016. McGregor signed on as Christopher Robin in April 2017 and principal photography began in August of that year in the United Kingdom, lasting until November. Christopher Robin premiered in Burbank, California on July 30, 2018. Released in the United States on August 3, 2018, by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, the film grossed over $197 million worldwide, becoming the highest-grossing film in Disney's Winnie the Pooh franchise surpassing The Tigger Movie released in 2000. The film received mostly positive reviews from critics, who praised its performances, musical score, and visual effects. The film received an Academy Award nomination for Best Visual Effects at the 91st Academy Awards.

Christopher Robin -- now a family man living in London -- receives a surprise visit from his old childhood pal, Winnie-the-Pooh. With Christopher's help, Pooh embarks on a journey to find his friends -- Tigger, Eeyore, Owl, Piglet, Rabbit, Kanga and Roo. Once reunited, the lovable bear and the gang travel to the big city to help Christopher rediscover the joy of life.

 

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The Diary of a Young Girl, also known as The Diary of Anne Frank, journal by Anne Frank, a Jewish teenager who chronicled her family’s two years (1942–44) in hiding during the German occupation of the Netherlands during World War II. The book was first published in 1947—two years after Anne’s death in a concentration camp—and later became a classic of war literature.

The diary is not written in the classic forms of "Dear Diary" or as letters to oneself; Anne calls her diary "Kitty", so almost all of the letters are written to Kitty. Anne used the above-mentioned names for her annex-mates in the first volume, from 25 September 1942 until 13 November 1942, when the first notebook ends. It is believed that these names were taken from characters found in a series of popular Dutch books written by Cissy van Marxveldt.

Anne's already budding literary ambitions were galvanized on 29 March 1944 when she heard a London radio broadcast made by the exiled Dutch Minister for Education, Art, and Science, Gerrit Bolkestein, calling for the preservation of "ordinary documents—a diary, letters ... simple everyday material" to create an archive for posterity as testimony to the suffering of civilians during the Nazi occupation. On 20 May 1944, she notes that she started re-drafting her diary with future readers in mind. She expanded entries and standardized them by addressing all of them to Kitty, clarified situations, prepared a list of pseudonyms, and cut scenes she thought would be of little interest or too intimate for general consumption. By the time she started the second existing volume, she was writing only to Kitty.

 

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Pony fiction is a genre in children's literature. It includes equestrian novels for young readers. Anna Sewell, author of the timeless classic "Black Beauty", introduced the genre.

Sewell was the first author to write a story from the perspective of a horse and it marked the beginning of pony fiction. Published in 1877, "Black Beauty is an autobiographical account of a horse from youth to retirement. Having spent carefree days as a foal on an English farm with his mother, life becomes for the horse when he is roped in to pull cabs on the streets of London. Each short chapter recounts an incident in Black Beauty's life imparting a lesson on kindness, sympathy, and better treatment of horses. It also highlights the hardships of cab drivers in London. Finally, the horse retires happily to the hard countryside.

The book helped kick off the animal rights movement and recommended humane treatment of animals used for transport.

POPULAR PONY FICTION BOOKS

• Rosie's Magic Horse": Written by Russell Hoban and illustrated by Quentin Blake, this story follows the adventures of young Rosie and her horse made from ice cream sticks, Stickerino.


• "Hello, Horse": This book by Vivian French and illustrated by Catherine Rayner introduces young children to Shannon, a friendly bay mare, and familiarises readers with these large, beautiful creatures.


• The Wish Pony": In this heartwarming story, a young Ruby meets the mysterious Magda, who gives her a special gift of a little glass horse, that might just be a bit magical. The book perfectly captures the everyday life and the magic of childhood.


• "Spud and Charli": Author Samantha Wheelers "Spud and Charli" is about a girl Charli, who loves horses and is looking forward to attending riding camp. But instead of the beautiful palomino Razz horse that she wants. Charli gets stuck riding the massive retired racehorse Spud.


• "Warhorse": Written by Michael Morpurgo, this book tells the story of Joey, a beautiful bay-red foal, who is sold to the army and thrust into the midst of the war on the Western Front. With his officer, he charges toward the enemy, witnessing the horror of the battles in France.

 

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A famous poet once told Charlotte Bronte that "literature cannot be the business of a woman's life." But Charlotte proved him wrong by penning "Jane Eyre" and becoming one of the earliest feminist voices in literature. Charlotte's heroine, the feisty and strong-willed governess, was based partly on herself and her sisters, Emily and Anne, and their extraordinary lives. Read on to know more about Charlotte's genius, imagination and literary prowess...

Early life

Born on April 21, 1816, Charlotte was the eldest among the Bronte sisters. Along with their brother Branwell, they lived in Haworth, West Yorkshire in England. At an early age, Charlotte had to grapple with the loss of her mother and two older sisters, who died of tuberculosis.

School too was a nightmare for Charlotte. The Clergy Daughters' School at Cowan Bridge had a harsh environment, and Charlotte had several bad experiences there. It served as an inspiration for the dark and cold Lowood Institution in "Jane Eyre".

Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell

Charlotte and her siblings penned several novels and poems using male pen names Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell. Currer Bell was Charlotte, Emily was Ellis and Anne was Acton. Charlotte even used this pseudonym while writing her most successful novel "Jane Eyre". She did not want to reveal her identity as she feared that the readers will not take a female author seriously. Even her publishers found out about her true identity later. "Jane Eyre" received rave reviews and readers began to speculate about who Currer Bell was. *Charlotte famously responded to her critics, "To you I am neither Man nor Woman - I come before you as an Author only - the sole ground on which I accept your judgement." (*Source: "Charlotte Bronte: A Fiery Heart by Claire Harman.)

Tiny books

Growing up, Charlotte and her siblings entertained themselves by creating miniature magazines. The magazines included original short stories, essays, poems, and letters written by the siblings as well as fictional advertisements and editorials. The second issue of one such book, called "The Young Men's Magazine", was bought by the Bronte Society for a sum of £600,000 last year. The tiny book has since been put on display at the Parsonage Museum in the Brontes old home in Haworth.

DID YOU KNOW?

• Charlotte's first novel "The Professor" was rejected nine times before it was finally published posthumously.


• A famous poet told Charlotte that "literature cannot be the business of a woman's life."


• Her siblings didn't live long enough to see her succeed. All three of them succumbed to tuberculosis between 1848 and 1849.


• A golden ring containing a lock of Charlotte's hair was discovered in an attic in north Wales in April, 2019. The authors name has been inscribed on the inside.

 

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If you love books, then you know the feeling of walking into a bookstore or a library and getting overwhelmed by the rows upon rows of books on display. They are classified by genre, authors, subjects, and languages. But did you know that works of fiction are further categorised by their word count?

A novel is the most commonly known form of a book. But have you heard of novellas and novelettes? And how do the three differ from one another? Read on to find out..

Size matters

We often say that we are reading a novel, but not all books are novels. A book is considered to be a novel only if it is more than 50,000 words (sometimes books up to 40,000 words are referred to as short novels). Works of fiction having less than the stipulated word count are classified as novelettes and novellas.

Caught in the middle

A novella is the longest form of short fiction - between 20.000 and 49.999 words. It lies somewhere between a novel and a short story. "Of Mice and Men" by John Steinbeck and "Animal Farm" by George Orwell are classic examples of novellas.

On the other hand, novelettes are generally books with a word count between 7.500 and 19.999 words. That means they are just a bit longer than a short story and micro or flash fiction, which is usually under 1,000 words.

At just over 9,200 words, Edgar Allan Poe's 'The Spectacles" is a classic example of a novelette. It is a story of a man who doesn't wear his spectacles and ends up marrying his grandmother

Besides word count and page length, another major difference between the three forms of books is the subject matter.

Because of their short length, novelettes and novellas are usually fast-paced and less complicated than novels. They follow a single central conflict and do not delve much into backstories or other points of view. Arguably, both novellas and novelettes are similar to short stories, but are wider in scope.

And the story goes on...

The aforementioned differences between novels, novellas and novelettes are not set in stone. There is still a lack of consensus in the literary world over the exact definitions of these forms. The definitions and stipulated word count can vary from publisher to publisher and country to country. To make matters even more confusing, some literature experts say that whether a book is a novel or a novella should be judged on the basis of their content and narrative structure, and not on their length alone.

So is the book you're reading a novel or not? Well, the jury is still out!

WHAT'S IN A NAME?

• "Harry Potter series: With each of the seven books consisting of more than 70,000 words, J.K. Rowling's "Harry Potter series is universally acknowledged as a novel series. J.R.R. Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings" and "The Hobbit" books too are considered novels. However, both Tolkien and Rowling have written companion books such as "The Silmarillion" and “The Tales of Beedle the Bard” respectively which may be considered novellas.


• "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde": Just like the multiple personalities of its protagonist, Robert Louis Stevenson's "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde too has two sides. Although the 16, 740 words book is widely considered to be a novella, some literati refer to it as a novelette.


• "The Little Prince": At less than 100 pages (16, 534 words), Antoine de Saint-Exupery's "The Little Prince" is far too short to be considered a novel and far too long to be a short story. So it falls in the category of a novella.


• "The Call of the Cthulhu": Many of the short works by H.P. Lovecraft are so short, ranging from 3,000 to 5,000 words, that they do not qualify to be even novelettes. Only his most famous work "The Call of the Cthulhu" falls under the category of a novelette because it is 11, 905 words.

 

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Black Beauty: His Grooms and Companions, the Autobiography of a Horse is an 1877 novel by English author Anna Sewell. It was composed in the last years of her life, during which she remained in her house as an invalid. The novel became an immediate best-seller, with Sewell dying just five months after its publication, but having lived long enough to see her only novel become a success. With fifty million copies sold, Black Beauty is one of the best-selling books of all time.

Although Black Beauty is looked at as a children's novel, Sewell did not write the novel for children. She said that her purpose in writing the novel was "to induce kindness, sympathy, and an understanding treatment of horses"—an influence she attributed to an essay on animals she read earlier by Horace Bushnell (1802–1876) entitled "Essay on Animals". Her sympathetic portrayal of the plight of working animals led to a vast outpouring of concern for animal welfare and is said to have been instrumental in the abolition of the cruel practice of using the checkrein (or "bearing rein", a strap used to keep horses' heads high, fashionable in Victorian England but painful and damaging to a horse's neck). Black Beauty also mentions the use of blinkers on horses, concluding that this use is likely to cause accidents at night due to interference with "the full use of" a horse's ability to "see much better in the dark than men can."

Black Beauty is considered to be one of the first fictional animal autobiographies. Originally meant to be informative literature read by adults on the norms of horse cruelty and preventions of these unjust acts, Black Beauty is now seen as a children's book. A novel narrated by the main character, Black Beauty is now read by thousands of kids worldwide.

 

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Manga is a distinctive style of comics originating in Japan. The creator of manga is known as mangaka.

This art form can be traced back to the "Chojugiga" (Scrolls of animals), drawn by Kakuyu (1053 - 1140). And it gradually developed as a narrative form in the hands of Hokusai Katsushika (1760 - 1849). Manga's popularity increased after the end of World War II.

What sets manga apart from cartoons is that it is published only in serial form. Appearing in instalments in magazines, manga doesn't give the entire story in one go to keep readers coming back for more.

How to read manga

Beginners might find it hard to read traditional manga as it reads from right to left (while English reads from left to right). So the pages turn in the opposite direction.

Manga are categorised by genre and content - shoujo for teen girls and shonen for adolescent boys. All manga for young readers are classified as kodomo.

The popularity of manga has given rise to doujinshi ("fan art'). Doujinshi is manga created by fans. Like any other fan fiction, it is written by fans, who use their own imagination to take the story forward or in a different direction.

Characteristics

Done in pen and ink, manga drawings are usually black and white. Although every artist brings her unique touch, the drawings lay emphasis on clean lines.

Most characters have large, almond –shaped eyes, while the rest of their body is comically out of proportion.

Popular works

• Written and illustrated by Akira Tonyama, the "Dragon Ball" manga series was published from 1984 to 1995. The manga was adapted into an anime (animation) and the story became an international success. It follows the adventures of Goku who is in search of Dragon Balls.


• "Deadpool: Samurai" is a manga series by Sanshirou Kasama and Hikaru Uesugi, based on Marvel's comics.


• "Death Note", a complex psychological thriller manga running to 12 volumes, has also been adapted into an animated film.


• "Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind" by Hayao Miyazaki is a captivating tale about an ecological catastrophe.


• "Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba the Movie: Mugen Train" directed by Haruo Sotozaki, has become the highest grossing animated film, breaking the record held by "Spirited Away."

DID YOU KNOW?

The manga industry is protected under Japanese law. So books cannot be sold for less than their cover price, even online.

 

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Do you love reading ghost stories, but hate being scared? Well, get ready for some spine tingling adventures of your favourite Wimpy kids, Greg and Rowley. But instead of getting spooked, the book will have you rolling on the floor with laughter. Author Jeff Kinney is diving into a new genre known as 'comedy horror, with his latest book, "Rowley Jefferson's Awesome Friendly Spooky Stories".

The new book, which released on March 16, follows Greg's best friend, Rowley Jefferson's imagination, and it is packed with zombies, vampires, ghosts, and many more spectres! Got goosebumps?

Keeping up his series of safe book tours during the COVID-19 pandemic, Kinney will embark on a haunted house-themed drive through book tour across the U.S for his latest book. He plans to also stop at Casper (the friendly ghost from the 1995 eponymous film comes to mind).

 

Ever since the first book in the series hit the stands in 2007, the "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" has become wildly popular with young readers, who can relate to Greg Heffley the protagonist. A prolific writer, Kinney comes up with at least one book every year.

All about comedy horror:

You might think that horror and comedy are as different as dalk and cheese. One is about scary monsters, and the other is about delightful goofs and wordplay. And yet, when you put these different themes together you get something even better.

Comedy horror as a genre originated after the publication of Man Shelley's "Frankenstein". Many authors came up with parodies on the classic, and the trend picked up. In children's literature, R.L. Stine's Goosebumps" series made the genre popular.

Comedy horror books tickle your funny bone, but make you want to sleep with your lights on!

Socially distant tours

To keep fans entertained during the COVID-19 pandemic Kinney devised fun, but socially distant book tours. In July 2020, Kinney gave out signed copies of "Rowley Jefferson's Awesome Friendly Adventure via a custom-made 96-inch trident: That's not all Kinney hosted a pool party-themed drive-through for "Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Deep End in October. Sounds fun, right?

From Igdoof to Wimpy

Right from childhood, Kinney loved to draw, but he wasn't very good at it. So he developed his own drawing style - with stick figures and bug-eyed characters.

Drawing inspiration from his surroundings, he created comic strips about the life around him. One such comic strip was "Igdoof', which Kinney ran in his college newspaper at the University of Maryland. However, his work looked too juvenile and so he never received any offers from big newspapers. In 1998, he came up with the idea for "Diary of a Wimpy Kid". Kinney worked on his book for almost eight years before showing it to a publisher. The series started off online on Funbrain.com in 2004 and made its print debut in April 2007.

 

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