The Children's Literature Podcast

Supergirl was produced by James Gunn, directed by Craig Gillespie, and directed by Ana Nogueira. I blame all three of them equally for this very, very bad movie. Millie Alcock was not the right choice for Supergirl but she’s just an actress doing a gig, so I don’t blame her. This film was such a raging disappointment that I needed to unleash my fury in the way that only a passive-aggre...

Things have been crazy in the last few weeks, so let’s have a nice relaxing cup of tea with two great authors who wrote essays about Britain’s most beloved beverage: George Orwell and Douglas Adams. I will be reading what they had to say, sharing a cup of tea with you, and ranking my favorite British biscuits to serve with tea. Please vote on whether or not you all prefer to dunk biscu...

Did Masters of the Universe have the power? YES! Was it perfect? NO! Did it need to be? NO! Did it give me everything I wanted? YES!

In the film 10 Things I Hate About You, Katarina Stratford gets an assignment to rewrite Shakespeare’s Sonnet 141. Her poem that perfectly pays tribute to the play The Taming of the Shrew while perfectly illustrating the complex emotions that come with teen relationships. This episode is an excerpt from a recent livestream over on my YouTube channel. You can find the full livestream here:

Why do some stories work when they play around with the race, gender, or location of a story and its characters, and why are others an annoying mess? It has to do with the basic split between how story adaptations for stage and screen are framed — either the story will be rooted in an immersive realistic setting, where every little detail matters, or it takes place in the Land of Make-Believ...

10 Things I Hate About You was an instant teen classic, adapting Shakespeare’s play The Taming of the Shrew for a 90’s audience. The film’s title comes from a bit of bad but sweet teen poetry written by the shrew herself, Kat Stratford. Julia Stiles’ moving reading of her character’s reinterpretation of the poem is the emotional peak of the film, showing us how love f...

My friend Miguel Lopez returns to the show, taking a break from his Ph. D studies of World War II to help me understand how Animal Farm by George Orwell creates a fictional portrayal of Stalin and Stalinism. We also answer a listener's question about whether the memes referring to British Prime Minister (for now) Keir Starmer as "Keir Stalin" are making fair criticisms of his policies, or if this...

Animal Farm directed by Andy Serkis and written by Nicholas Stoller is an utter abomination.

Here’s my thoughts on three upcoming adaptations of children’s stories. First, the preview trailer for the new  Little House on the Prairie adaptation by Netflix looks like it might actually be . . . Good??? Also, it sounds like those rumors about HBO considering turning Lord Voldemort into Lady Voldemort might have some truth to it (ugh). And to wrap up, I react to a new featurette th...

Human beings are going back to the moon! As I recorded this episode, Artemis II was on its journey to the moon and back again, with four crew members on board the Orion spacecraft. But what do Artemis and Orion have to do with each other? Quite a lot, actually! These two were hunting buddies who loved to explore the wilderness together. There are many twists on the myth, but all of them ended badl...