Ruth O'Hara's Critical Thinking Blog

In my last post I mentioned 3 pieces of media I had an interest in, which were children’s books, video games and animation, which includes cartoons and films. Here I would like to elaborate in more detail the possible themes for my essay topic. Below are 3 areas along with issues in these areas that take an interest to me: Feminism and Children’s Books This continues on the topic of my essay from level 5 where I discussed stereotypical behaviour in children’s books, there are some areas within this topic I can explore further. I could look into how the ideology has shaped contemporary stories and characters compared to the examples and criticisms of classic stories. Or I could analyse examples of mothers from children’s books much like I did for my level 5 essay, either comparing classic and contemporary character examples or look into why the role of motherhood is viewed as restrictive in children’s books, as that is a topic that came up in my research for last essay. AI Art Generator...

In my level 5 essay I analysed female representation in children’s books and evaluated whether they had an effect on children. I was advised that I could expand on this topic by researching representation of mothers in children’s books and explore how the roles are viewed by today’s standards and how they are presented in newer stories.  This would be a logical choice and I agree that there is potential to explore more on this topic, however I didn’t say much about how this would influence my future practice other than a vague statement on how I would like to write genuine character representations for storytelling. I would certainly like to write and illustrate children’s books one day, and granted the stories I have so far just so happen to have female main characters, but I have a hard time explaining why these issues are important to me. I prioritise storytelling over diversity, if it’s not important to the story then it shouldn’t be forced in just for the sake of pandering to ...