CCBC-Net Archives
Virginia Hamilton and Narrative Style
- Contemporary messages sorted: [ by date ] [ by subject ] [ by author ]
From: Megan Schliesman <Schliesman>
Date: Tue, 17 Sep 2002 10:11:45 -0500
Ginny wrote last week about Virginia Hamilton's narrative structure in Anthony Burns. Her comments got me to thinking about the way Virginia Hamilton so adeptly, so brilliantly, matched/developed/created narrative style that suited the form, and no doubt intent, of each book. There are her dazzling folktale collections that invite oral reading, her imaginative and varied prose forms in her novels, and her striking non-fiction writing. For each book, regardless of format, the style so purposely suits the story being told, whether that story is of a fictional child uncovering a house's historied connection to the Underground Railroad, as in The House of Dies Drear, or many stories of real lives lived under--and lost to-- slavery, as in Many Thousand Gone. In that book, she pared language to a minimum, writing in short, explosive sentences that propelled people and events to the forefront. Sometimes she wrote little more than a fragement--all that was known about an indidivdual--underscoring how so many lives were indeed lost to the generations that came after--all of us.
Are there books of Virginia Hamilton that you find particularly striking for their narrative style, or elements of characterization that KT Horning wrote about in her reflection on Hamilton's body of work?
Megan
Megan Schliesman, Librarian Cooperative Children's Book Center School of Education UW-Madison 608&2?03 schliesman at education.wisc.edu
Received on Tue 17 Sep 2002 10:11:45 AM CDT
Date: Tue, 17 Sep 2002 10:11:45 -0500
Ginny wrote last week about Virginia Hamilton's narrative structure in Anthony Burns. Her comments got me to thinking about the way Virginia Hamilton so adeptly, so brilliantly, matched/developed/created narrative style that suited the form, and no doubt intent, of each book. There are her dazzling folktale collections that invite oral reading, her imaginative and varied prose forms in her novels, and her striking non-fiction writing. For each book, regardless of format, the style so purposely suits the story being told, whether that story is of a fictional child uncovering a house's historied connection to the Underground Railroad, as in The House of Dies Drear, or many stories of real lives lived under--and lost to-- slavery, as in Many Thousand Gone. In that book, she pared language to a minimum, writing in short, explosive sentences that propelled people and events to the forefront. Sometimes she wrote little more than a fragement--all that was known about an indidivdual--underscoring how so many lives were indeed lost to the generations that came after--all of us.
Are there books of Virginia Hamilton that you find particularly striking for their narrative style, or elements of characterization that KT Horning wrote about in her reflection on Hamilton's body of work?
Megan
Megan Schliesman, Librarian Cooperative Children's Book Center School of Education UW-Madison 608&2?03 schliesman at education.wisc.edu
Received on Tue 17 Sep 2002 10:11:45 AM CDT
