Analyzes fictional women created by male authors, explaining that these books, suitable for upper high school classrooms, show an author's range is not limited by gender, race, ethnicity, religion, or any other category. The authors of these works have embraced gender paradoxes, leaving readers to forego stereotypes and make their own decisions…

Discusses both the need for guides to women authors and their preparation, from the point of view of an author of a guide to books by women writers and a guide to books with major female characters. (RS)

Discusses the author's novels in relation to her life, and how her childhood and adult memories found their way into her writing. Maintains that writing out of her experience means writing as a woman, to understand her connections to the women in her life and to explore through fiction the human condition. (SR)

Novelist Denise Giardina discusses growing up in a small West Virginia coal mining town, educational experiences, her career as writer, the manner in which she creates and develops characters in novels, the influence of other Appalachian writers on her career, and the political content of her writing. (LP)

Walter Dean Myers has gained distinction as an insightful and entertaining writer of imaginative adolescent literature that breaks stereotypes, tells stories of Blacks as people with complex dimension, and redefines the images of African Americans. Myers has written historical works, biography, novels for adolescents, plays, historical fiction,…

Presents an interview with T.A. Barron, an author of a trilogy of novels about a 12-year-old girl. Topics include character development, adult/child relationships, themes, writing processes, the influence of children on the writing, adult science fiction and young-adult classification of the books, and research and rewrites. (AEF)

Children quickly become bored with repetition requiring the library media specialists to vary their booktalk formats to sustain children's attention and promote recreational reading. This article discusses the four basic booktalk formats: plot summary, anecdote, character description, creation of mood, and a fifth to promote books with a common…

Research into the portrayal of miniature human-like characters in the fictional narratives of art and literature suggests that profound values abound in the miniature. The paper discusses two examples of fairy miniatures, Rudyard Kipling's "Puck" and J. M. Barrie's "Tinker Bell." Little characters, whatever their provenance,…

Discusses and appraises the work of Nobel Prize winning black author Toni Morrison. Locates thematic and stylistic antecedents in the works of Fyodor Dostoevsky and Ernest Hemingway. Compares and contrasts Morrison's work with Ralph Ellison's "Invisible Man" and discusses the critical reception of black authors. (MJP)