The document discusses how children's literature contains common archetypes and borrows elements from other stories. It notes that fairy tales often involve a lost younger couple facing tragic events they did not cause and temptation. The document advises writers that they do not need to directly recreate old stories, but can draw inspiration from the patterns and details found in classics like Alice in Wonderland and Wind in the Willows. It also argues that modern audiences want new stories to feel both familiar and unfamiliar at the same time.

1. Hanseldee and
Greteldum
Chapter 8

2. Key Points
● All Literature comes from other literature.
● Archetypes are easy to spot in “kiddie lit.”
● Fairy tales and other children's stories contain a lot of irony.
Common Archetypes include
1. A lost younger couple fending for themselves.
2. Tragic events that they didn’t create
3. Temptation

3. Quote: 1
“What readers know varies so much more
than it once did. So what can the writer use
for parallels, analogies, plot structures,
references, that most of his readers will
know?
Kiddie lit.
Yep. Alice in Wonderland. Treasure Island.
The Narnia novels. The Wind in the Willows
and The Cat in the Hat. Goodnight Moon.”

4. Quote: 2
“Here’s the good deal for you as
writer: You don’t have to use the
whole story. Sure, it has X, Y, and
B, but not A, C, and Z. So what?
We’re not trying to re-create the
fairy tale here. Rather, we’re
trying to make use of details or
patterns, portions of some prior
story.”

5. Quote:3
“Here’s what I think we do: we want
strangeness in our stories, but we want
familiarity, too. We want a new novel
to be not quite like anything we’ve
read before. At the same time, we look
for it to be sufficiently like other
things we’ve read so that we can use
those to make sense of it.”

6. Examples
● Shrek (Tons of fairytales)
● Tangled (Rapunzel)
● Once Upon a Time (twists fairytales)
● Enchanted (modern-day fairytale)