Yes, yes, Alligator Baby is *definitely* what I would call 'realistic" fiction.

[conuly]

Genre: Realistic Ficton?
Age Appropriateness: Primary
Media: Watercolor
Review: This story is about a family who is having a baby. The parents get lost on their way to the hospital and end up at the zoo. Instead of their human baby, they brought home an alligator. They go back to the zoo two more times trying to find their baby and bring home the wrong one, so their daughter goes to the zoo and finds the right baby. The mothers of the other animals come looking for their babies and break down part of the house, but in the end all appropriate mothers have their babies and the daughter saved the day.

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<i>Genre: Realistic Ficton?
Age Appropriateness: Primary
Media: Watercolor
Review: This story is about a family who is having a baby. The parents get lost on their way to the hospital and end up at the zoo. Instead of their human baby, they brought home an alligator. They go back to the zoo two more times trying to find their baby and bring home the wrong one, so their daughter goes to the zoo and finds the right baby. The mothers of the other animals come looking for their babies and break down part of the house, but in the end all appropriate mothers have their babies and the daughter saved the day. <b?This story could be seen as realistic fiction because the animals do not talk or anything and it is possible that a family could bring the wrong baby home, but it is hardly likely that they would bring a zoo animal home.</b></i>

I feel sorry for whoever's students these are, because their set-in-stone genres that they talk about are <i>not</i> going to work for picture books.

I'm starting to think about how I'd divide picture books, actually. I think I'd sort them by "dreamy" and "wordless" and "early reader" and "issues" and "alphabet" myself. It works better than fantasy or not.

Comments

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

"I think I'd sort them by "dreamy" and "wordless" and "early reader" and "issues" and "alphabet" myself. It works better than fantasy or not."

I like those categories - they do seem much more useful than 'fantasy' or 'not', which is an adult-mind differentation with no significance to the minds of the intended readers.

'Realistic fiction' is nothing more or less than fiction that could be real because what happens in it could plausibly happen in real life. Obviously, not even a blind moron on heroin would mistake a baby alligator for her own child, and a realistic story about a human baby left in the reach of adult alligators would not be suitable for children.

[conuly]

Obviously, not even a blind moron on heroin would mistake a baby alligator for her own child

We can only hope.

I think I'll add "folk tale" to that list (including stories that aren't traditional but that consciously are written to sound that way). I mean, there are ways to divide up picture books - but fantasy and realistic and mystery and sci-fi and Real Literature aren't it.

Sorry for just repeating both of us there. I like to comment, but sometimes lack for what to say.

[conuly]

Come to think of that, I could probably add one or two categories to that.

Alphabet could be considered pre-primary educational, and include books on learning numbers or colors or shapes as well. Some are well-done, some aren't.

Educational is just that - books like Germs Make Me Sneeze! or I Want to be a Dancer. If there's a story, nobody cares, it's just about throwing facts in. (They're better when the authors forgo the framing stories and just talk about whatever it is.)

Historical would encompass biographies (Nobody Owns the Sky, with its atrocious poetry) and just historically set works (The Cats in Krasinski Square is awesome).

And there's the stuff like Keats wrote, some of which only has a beginning, middle, and end in a very technical sense - it's about a kid, not about a story. (The same things I loved about Hi, Cat - such as the fact that nothing really happens! - caused other reviewers to say the book is "weird". There's no pleasing some folks.)

Nursery rhymes are self explanatory (dear god, I hope none of these poor students have had to review a book of nursery rhymes! Their heads might implode from trying to decide how realistic they are!)

I might even have room for a category of "interactive" books, either hunt-and-finds or books like the Pigeon books where you keep yelling no. (Or, if you're a brat like my beloveds, yes. The book falls apart if you tell the pigeon he can stay up late, although it is very funny to hear them tell him to shut up already.)

And... that just leaves... um... "silly" and "everything else". Alligator Baby, along with the rest of Munsch's books, would be "silly", which does fit the book more than "realistic" or "fantasy" does. (And the reviewer's tenuous grasp of the word "realistic" falls apart completely if she bothers to look at the illustrations, which show monkeys wielding hacksaws in a series of escapes.)

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

LOL, some monkeys could probably wield hacksaws if they had hacksaws, but how would they obtain them in the first place? It's not like their compadres 'on the outside' are going to send them a banana cream pie with a hacksaw hidden in it.