Journal articles on the topic 'Robinson Crusoe (Fictitious character)'

The novel Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe, theme depicts the philosophy of existentialism. Existentialism argues the existence of humans through freedom of choice of the existence of who or what to become. The Robinson Crusoe character’s struggle to realize his freedom of life and defend his existence exemplars the existentialism. Robinson was adamant to his fathers’ advice and went to the sea. This paper discusses the characteristics of existentialism evident in the novel Robinson Crusoe. These aspects include the essence of existence, existence precedes essence, human alienation or estrangement, Fear and Trembling Anxiety, The Encounter with Nothingness, and Freedom. The relationships between existence and freedom of choice in human life establish the fact on augmentation of existentialism, as seen in Robinson Crusoe Character.

Daniel Defoe’s novel Robinson Crusoe takes a sailor named Alexander Selkirk as its prototype, telling a story of the protagonist Robinson Crusoe’s life and adventure, especially his experience on an island for 28 years. Critics argue that there are two major themes in the novel: economic individualism and religious belief, and more or less believe that making a good fortune and spiritual pursuit are opposite. However, analysis of the protagonist from a single perspective--economics or religion--inevitably leads to contradiction of understanding the character. This paper analyzes Robinson Crusoe from the theoretical perspective of Max Weber’s Protestant ethic and spirit of capitalism, seeking the “elective affinity” of the two. Crusoe is an ambitious adventurer, a diligent laborer and a lonely ascetic, all of which has an elective affinity with the Protestant ethic. Meanwhile, Robinson Crusoe converts to religion to guide his life. His seemingly contradictory behaviors reflects that he is in fact a product of the elective affinity of the economic ideology and the religious consciousness.

In this explorative study, the response to individualism in Robinson Crusoe as a character in the novel written by Daniel Defoe is scrutinized. Over 40 participants in English Language Department took role while they were studying the novel in their full academic year. In conformity with data collection, pre-test and post-test were administered on the students using individualism inventory. Their opinions in both tests were analyzed using quantitative measures. The focus of the study is to determine if students get any lessons of life from the novel namely, Crusoe's lonely life on the island, and how they are going to apply it in their own real lives on the one hand. On the other, whether or not their attitudes get affected by the individual and solitude life Crusoe experienced. That is, their psychological status and self-awareness about their individual life and community as collective. The findings confirm that students of English department on Faculty of Education were psychologically changed and have more appreciation of collective which is the community and their self-awareness as individuals. This suggests that novels provide not only knowledge chiefly related to language proficiency, but also psychological, social, and intellectual in the long run.

This paper offers a postcolonial-oriental reading of Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe. The study employs the postcolonial theory, principally, Edward Said’s orientalism and his concept of contrapuntal reading, which investigates the contextual circumstances of a text’s production. Such a reading demonstrates that, in plot, setting, thematic content and characterization, Robinson Crusoe is a prototypical colonial narrative, shaped by colonial discourse and reflects the dominant imperialist ideologies of its time concerning race, identity and otherness. British colonialism informs nearly every feature of Robinson Crusoe, and, in its orientalist rhetoric, the novel clearly reproduces the imperialistic ideology of its time. Friday’s existence in the text generates oriental ‘othering’ (which establishes his identity as the colonized) and serves both as a reminder of the colonial expansion of the British Empire and of the era’s dominant, imperialistic discourse and perceived superiority of Englishness. Imperialism started to influence English national identity as colonizer as early as the eighteenth centuries with the English thinking more highly of themselves on account of their contact with colonized peoples, as epitomized in the character and personality of Defoe’s protagonist, Robinson Crusoe. As narrator, Crusoe’s attitude towards non-Europeans and his use of racial slurs are clearly in line with the era’s orientalist rhetoric, which traditionally attributed traits outside British ideal values and accepted norms to the colonized or Eastern other.

The 18th century in England was a period when theories and discourses were being seriously discussed. While achieving political stability in industrious revolution, the scientific interpretation of classics and the spirit of a new era in the novels influenced the direction of human life. The novel gave birth to a new human identity. The most representative novel among them is Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe. The characters in the novel show the attributes of human identity in ideal culture and society. They produce the meaning of a new identity in the events. Although they are ordinary people, they reproduce human life as the epitome of intellectuals in buildungsroman. Here we consciously believe identity is interpreted differently depending on who the subject of the action accordingly is. Furthermore, we understand human behavior by looking at their possible action and personality. Identity is perceived as terms such as paradox, image, existence, and hypothesis are related to human life. Therefore, identity in the situation requires objects that can imitate human beings. Even though identity in a novel is a fiction, we match identity with a specific character. This paper studies how to recognize identity through the works of Plato, Aristotle, and Crusoe who is the main character of Robinson Crusoe.

This study aims to describe and reveal the main character's emotional management in Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, a Penguin classics novel published in London in 1994. This study employs a descriptive qualitative technique and Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytic approach. The research data was derived from the novel's narrations and portrayal of the main character. The study found that the main character's psychology employed a defensive mechanism to regulate all the emotions that arose. The main character in this work uses suppression, rationalization, reaction construction, regression, anger and indifference, and imagination. Repression serves as the main character's protection mechanism in the narrative. The main character demonstrated that he attempted to channel his melancholy into thankfulness and to turn his anxiety into rational thinking.

J. M. Coetzee’s 1986 novel Foe tells the story of Susan Barton, who has boarded a ship bound for Lisbon in her search for her kidnapped daughter. After a mutiny on the ship she is set adrift, washing ashore on the island inhabited by “Cruso” and Friday and intruding into their ongoing adventure. Her account is then inserted into the original Robinson Crusoe story line, which is redrawn following Susan Barton’s perspective. The original text’s recontextualization illustrates the effort by Coetzee to render the story in categories that are relevant to a contemporary cultural context. Like Robinson Crusoe, it is a frame story, developed while Barton is in England attempting to convince writer Daniel Foe to help transform her tale into popular fiction. Friday is a character whose marginality – as it first appears in Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe – is carried forward in J. M. Coetzee’s Foe, as this new version of Friday is that of a more disempowered and dysfunctional subject, one doubly mutilated – orally and sexually. This paper aims to study Friday’s subversive subalternity in Coetzee’s work by using postcolonial methodology with a view to uncover his unique, rebellious behaviour and his capacity to define his own modes of freedom.

The imperial project started to influence English national identity as early as the mid-seventeenth century, and the English began to relate their national prominence to their colonial activities, whether in trade or in the acquisition of foreign territories, throughout the eighteenth century. However, England experienced its share of anxieties on the road to imperial "greatness" in its dealings with both other European powers and its native subjects. The British people's tendency to examine themselves and their international achievements with intense pride helped to neutralize those anxieties, much like Crusoe's imagined responses to possible dangers alleviate his fictional forebodings. The English ameliorated their concerns about their international position by becoming an ever more self-referential society, thinking more highly of themselves on account of their contact with colonized peoples, as is epitomized in the personality of Crusoe. To the fictional Crusoe, the experience of his relationship with Friday validates his self-worth and his native culture more than anything else. Robinson Crusoe's affirmation of colonial power through the assertion of his authority over a particular (othered) individual corresponds with, and epitomizes, England's trading and territorial empire during the eighteenth century and the consequent effects on British subjectivity, at a time when the British were struggling to set up a trading empire and challenging other European powers for territory and markets abroad. Robinson Crusoe successfully resolves the insecurities relating to Britain's colonial activities by asserting, through Crusoe's character, the superior nature of the English subject.

The English Robinsonade as a form thrived in the 1750s, but in a variant that revealed affinities not only with Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe but also Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, and the imaginary voyage more broadly. A central position in this micro-tradition was occupied by Robert Paltock’s Peter Wilkins (1751), the popularity of which resulted in several fictions written in its wake, including Ralph Morris’s John Daniel (1751), William Bingfield by an anonymous author (1753), and Adolphus Bannac’s Crusoe Richard Davis (1756). These narratives explored both the Robinsonade conventions and aspects of the poetics of wonder to offer a variety of ‘Friday’ configurations, from hybrid animals to winged or feathered women. This article reads the aesthetic and ideological meanings behind these ‘strange surprizing’ character constructs.

Abstract This essay studies Robinson Crusoe’s ‘chronical Distemper’ of wanderlust in the context of early eighteenth-century concepts of mental illness, which often hinge on unruly passions and, even more specifically, an overactive imagination. Defoe describes Crusoe’s insatiable urge to ramble as a type of insanity that is rooted in fancy, not reason, yet simultaneously indicates that the expression of this impulse differentiates his character and generates magnificent gains. Although at odds with religious and medical warnings about the dangers of excessive passion, then, Defoe suggests that Crusoe’s ‘unconquerable’ wanderlust is a beneficial kind of madness that counteracts idleness and cements his distinctly English, merchant capitalist identity. More largely, the Crusoe trilogy as a whole contributes to early novelistic discourse by aligning mental illness, self-analysis, and the production of narrative, thereby stitching together evolving concepts of the human mind and literary form.

This research paper delves into the profound materialist themes present in Defoe's iconic novel. By thoroughly examining the novel's portrayal of material possessions, their significance, and their impact on the characters and their environment, this study aims to provide a comprehensive analysis of the materialist themes embedded within the narrative.The research objectives include analyzing the role of material wealth in establishing identity, exploring the symbolism of Crusoe's fortification as a manifestation of materialism and power dynamics, investigating the paradoxical relationship between materialism and isolation, examining the transformation of the character Friday and its critique of materialism, and exploring the connection between materialism and colonialism within the novel.To achieve these objectives, the study employs a combination of close textual analysis and engaging with relevant critical perspectives. The analysis is supported by direct quotes from the novel, with proper references including the author's name and page numbers. Additionally, insights from prominent literary critics are incorporated, further enriching the exploration of materialist themes in Robinson Crusoe.The findings of this research shed light on the multifaceted nature of materialism within the novel. It reveals how material possessions shape the characters' identities, provide both comfort and distress, and contribute to their experiences of isolation. Furthermore, the study highlights the dehumanizing consequences of materialism and its impact on the dynamics of power and colonialism within the narrative.Finally, this research paper offers a comprehensive and nuanced analysis of the materialist themes in Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe. It contributes to the existing body of scholarship on the novel by providing a deeper understanding of its exploration of materialism, its implications for the characters, and its broader social and cultural commentary. Keywords: Materialism, comprehensive analysis, material possessions, identity, power dynamics, isolation, colonialism.

This paper seeks to analyze the techniques and effects of voice and silence in the life of a female character in J. M. Coetzee’s Foe. The analysis shows how the character of Susan Barton in Foe gives readers a feminine perspective on the famous tale of Robinson Crusoe. The method of investigation is a critical examination of the characterization of the female character; the research analyzes the events, actions and the interactions of Susan Barton, with a sight to identify how the character of Susan is portrayed in the novel. The analysis shows that while Susan is able to find a “voice” in some parts of this post-colonial text, her constant submission to strong male characters in the novel ends up showing a picture of a frail woman who defines her existence and individuality relative to men in her life. It strengthens the fact that women were still struggling to free themselves from the patriarchal domination of the post-colonial era.

Being one of the most significant contemporary poetesses, Mariana Codruţ creates substantial effects in the structure of compressed sentences, which have an essential role in constructing the message. The current paper aims to examine the unique features that her poetry has developed for some decades. The poetics of existence surpasses the confrontation with spatial and temporal limits, and requires a holistic way of thinking about the place of humans in the world, which goes beyond the being-action dichotomy. The paper highlights the islanding process, and (starting from Deleuze’s remarks on Robinson Crusoe) emphasizes the difference between Defoe’s character and the lyrical voice. Thus, in Mariana Codruţ’s writings, the second genesis makes existence understood as continuous poetic creation, reflecting the mental atlas that allows the Omni vision to replace the ego vision. The poetess’ creative capacity resides in the position enabled by different feelings, completed by an ethical swing. Conceived as life acts (with distillation, intentness and dissemination), the poems do not avoid the (post)violent world, the images of power, the process of hybridization, and the touch of essentiality. Beyond the varying employment of connotation, poetry is the pulse, the truth, and the ascending way of living.

The article investigates the concept of authorship in the works of two authors separated by three centuries, namely, Daniel Defoe and J. M. Coetzee, both concerned, in different ways, with aspects regarding the origin and originators of literary works or with the act of artistic creation in general. After a brief literature review, the article focuses on Coetzee’s contemporary revisitation of the question of authorship and leaps back and forth in time from Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe (1719) to Coetzee’s Foe (1986). The purpose is that of highlighting the multiple perspectives (and differences) regarding the subject of authorship, including such notions and aspects as: canonicity related to the act of writing and narrating, metafiction, self-reflexivity and intertextuality, silencing and voicing, doubling, bodily substance and the substance of a story, authenticity, (literary) representation and the truth, authoring, the author’s powers, the relation between author and character or between narrator and story, authorial self-consciousness, agency, or ambiguity. The findings presented in the article show that both works are seminal in their attempts to define and redefine the notion of authorship, one (Defoe) concerned with the first literary endeavours of establishing the roles of professional authorship in England, while the other (Coetzee), intervenes in existing literary discussions of the late twentieth century concerning the postmodern author and (the questioning of or liberation of the text from) his powers.

Professor Preston was born in Leeds on 21 July, 1908. His father, Walter Cluderoy Preston, was a self–employed builder who read Nature each week, but at that time the journal had a more general character than it has today. He was particularly knowledgeable in geography. He had some skill as a monumental mason and sculptor mainly of cemetery memorials. He had taught his son to read and ensured that he was well read; the child had read Robinson Crusoe at the age of five years and was reading Paradise lost at the age of four. His grandfather's brother made a living rolling pills in the cellar of his house and this was developed into a successful chemical business. Preston's great uncle Walter was married to Ethel and when she died he built over her grave in Lawnswood cemetery a statue (called ‘Ethel at the gate’) of her waiting, looking for his return as she had done during her lifetime. The memorial was featured in local postcards for many years. Preston's paternal grandfather, John Roger Gilpin Preston, was a prominent builder in Leeds, who became bankrupt and died of pneumoconiosis at the age of 45 years. His grandmother, Ann Cluderoy, was expert at cleaning ostrich feathers, fashionable ornaments at that time. They had three sons, of whom Preston's father was the eldest, and two daughters. Roger Preston had built Mount Pisgah Chapel in Tong Road, New Wortley, in Leeds, and later, during the Boer War, he built a residential estate. Preston's father rescued some furniture, crockery and some silver, and a piano with a movable keyboard on which Preston practised. His mother was Eliza Dawson, a seamstress whose mother, Rebecca White, had come from Ilkeston in Derbyshire; Preston's mother insisted that her son go to university. In April 1935 Preston married Sara Jane Pollard, by whom he had a son, David Roger, and two daughters, Maureen Anne, a physiotherapist, and Judith Margaret, a dental nurse. His wife died in 1962, as did David, who had become an organic chemist employed by Glaxo at Greenham and then by Imperial Chemical Industries and by Professor Lipson at the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology. In October 1963, in Leeds, Preston married Eva Frei (DrScNat), a Swiss scientist who had come to work with him.

Through an examination of the politics of print culture that contributed to the 1740 continuation of Daniel Defoe’s 1724 Roxana, this essay brings the historical 18th- century playwright, novelist, and political pamphleteer Eliza Haywood into conversation with South African novelist J.M. Coetzee’s metafictional reworking of Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe (1719) and Roxana, Foe (1986). This essay places Haywood – whose novel The British Recluse (1722) is one of at least seven pre- existing texts that make up the “pastiche” (Seager, 2009, p. 370) that constitutes the 1740 Roxana – alongside Foe’s narrator Susan Barton, a character who constitutes “a pastiche of 18th-century heroines” (Maher 39), a woman who is “doubt itself” (Coetzee 133), uncertain of who controls the truth of her narrative, yet a woman who writes back to and against the narrative established for her by her male counterparts. Susan’s story of her life as a castaway on Cruso’s island is taken from her by Foe, Coetzee’s fictionalization of Daniel Defoe, who, instead of writing her requested The Female Castaway, writes her out of the narrative that becomes Robinson Crusoe, turning her instead into the narrator of Roxana. Spivak asks, “who is the female narrator of Robinson Crusoe?” And I answer: in a somewhat playful feminist act of resurrection, Eliza Haywood.

Robinson Crusoe is a mythic character who lives not only in the popular imaginary but through the history of political and social thought. Defoe’s protagonist lives marooned on his island, isolated and apart from society. The narrative is a perfect naturalisation of the ‘bourgeois’ world, dependent on an ontology of the self-sufficient individual. This article analyses this lineage in the social contract theory of Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau. Later, Hegel used the novel to illustrate his dialectic of mastery/servitude. Challenging the atomism of the state of nature, Hegel’s theory of recognition gives an account of positive freedom, where the individual is formed in and through social interdependence. This sociality is continued by Marx, who satirises Defoe's novel in his value-form critique of political economy. The value-form provides insight into Robinson's island labour and Marx's difference with Locke's labour theory of value. For Marx, the myth of ‘natural man’ hides the domination of capitalist development and Robinson Crusoe reflects the internalisation of the abstract rationality of commodity society. However, Marx's immanent critique of the novel points to a radical idea of social life and freedom.

This article focuses on J. M. Coetzee’s exploration of character in Foe and Elizabeth Costello, employing the metaphor of a “shipwreck” to depict the breakdown of traditional realism in literature. It examines how characters “drift” in the expanse between material reality and symbolic representation. This exploration hinges on the dual interpretations of “character”—as both a literal mark or signifier and a figurative embodiment of personhood. The discussion commences with Robinson Crusoe, positing that “drift” has been an inherent characteristic of literary characters since the inception of the novelistic tradition. The article then delves into Coetzee's nuanced narrative style, demonstrating how his characters, adrift on a sea of language and symbolism, strive to maintain their authentic existence against the encroaching tide of linguistic abstraction. This metaphorical “drift” and “shipwreck” mirror broader philosophical and cultural shifts in literature, where characters constantly oscillate between their roles as tangible entities and constructs within narrative frameworks. Coetzee’s works are shown to exemplify this tension, presenting characters who are not only vital to the storyline but also serve as metaphors for the enduring human quest for meaning and reality amid the fluidity of language and fiction.

Revisionism is the exercise of revising or reforming of one’s point of view to a previously held belief or accepted viewpoint of a situation. In literature, revisionism is the retreading of a canonical text through a different point of view. Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea is one such retelling of the story of the canonical text of Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte, from the viewpoint of the minor character Bertha Mason. While Jane Eyre tells the story of a simple girl, Jane Eyre, and the happy ending of her romantic narrative, this paper will study Wide Sargasso Sea as a revisionary text that picks up the minor narrative of Bertha Mason as Antoinette, a Creole heiress, making it a tragic feminist grand narrative of postcolonial response to the romantic tale of Jane Eyre. Similarly, J. M. Coetzee’s novel Foe is a revisionary text based on the canonical text Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe. Placing a woman in a male dominated world, the novel Foe highlights the issues of patriarchal oppression, colonial oppression, authorial tyranny, and language and power, which remain hidden in the romantic canonical narrative of Crusoe’s adventurous life and his valorous escape from the island where he was stranded for twenty eight years. This paper will trace the difference of a woman’s life and journey than a man’s in a world ruled by patriarchal laws. Moreover, this paper will establish the novel Foe as a revisionary text that retells Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe from a realistic and colonial point of view instead of a heroic tale.

Autumn is not only a gloriously colourful time of the year, it is a time when a plethora of children’s book related events and awards take place. Just see what is happening in the next few months:IBBY: “Silent Books: Final Destination Lampedusa” travelling exhibit In response to the international refugee crisis that began last year, the Italian arm of the International Board on Books for Young People has launched a travelling picture-book exhibit to support the first children’s library on the island of Lampedusa, Italy where many African and Middle Eastern refugees are landing. After stops in Italy, Mexico, and Austria, the exhibit is currently touring Canada. It premiered in Edmonton at the Stanley A. Milner Library in August. Next are three Vancouver locations: UBC Irving Barber Learning Centre (Oct. 1 to 23), Vancouver Public Library central branch (Oct. 8 to 18), and the Italian Cultural Centre (Oct. 10 to 22). Then the North York Central Library in Toronto from Nov. 2 to Dec 11. Recognizing Lampedusa island’s cultural diversity, the exhibit comprises exclusively wordless picture books from 23 countries, including three from Canada:“Hocus Pocus” by Sylvie Desrosiers & Rémy Simard’s (Kids Can Press), “Ben’s Big Dig” by Daniel Wakeman and Dirk van Stralen’s(Orca Book Publishers)“Ben’s Bunny Trouble” also by Wakeman and van Stralen (Orca Book Publishers). Other books are drawn from an honour list selected by a jury of experts from the 2015 Bologna Children’s Book Fair including Ajubel’s “Robinson Crusoe” (Spain), Ara Jo’s “The Rocket Boy”(Korea), and Madalena Matoso’s “Todos Fazemos Tudo” (Switzerland), among others. The full catalogue can be viewed online.TD Canadian Children’s Book Week.Next year’s TD Canadian Children’s Book Week will take place from May 7-14, 2016. Thirty Canadian children’s authors, illustrators and storytellers will be touring across Canada visiting schools, libraries, bookstores and community centres. Visit the TD Book Week site (www.bookweek.ca) to find out who will be touring in your area and the types of readings and workshops they will be giving. If your school or library is interested in hosting a Book Week visitor, you can apply online starting in mid-October.Shakespeare Selfie CBC Books will once again be running the Shakespeare Selfie writing challenge in April 2016. Shakespeare took selfies all the time but instead of a camera, he used a quill. And instead of calling them "selfies," they were called "soliloquies."The challenge: Write a modern-day soliloquy or monologue by a Shakespearean character based on a prominent news, pop culture or current affairs event from the last year (April 2015-April 2016). It can be in iambic pentameter or modern syntax with a word count from 200 to 400 words. There are two age categories: Grades 7-9 and 10-12. Details at: http://www.cbc.ca/books/2015/10/the-2016-shakespeare-selfie-writing-challenge-for-students.html Awards:The winners of this year’s Canadian Jewish Literary Awards, celebrating Jewish literature and culture in Canada, have been announced. Amongst the nine awards is one for Youth Literature which was awarded to Suri Rosen for “Playing with Matches” (ECW Press). See all the award winners here: http://www.cjlawards.ca/.The Canadian Children's Book Centre administers several awards including the TD Canadian Children’s Literature Award, the Marilyn Baillie Picture Book Award, the Monica Hughes Award for Science Fiction and Fantasy and the Norma Fleck Award for Canadian Children’s Non-Fiction. This year’s winners will be announced on November 18, 2015. http://www.bookcentre.ca/awardThe Fitzhenry Family Foundation has revealed the winners of its Lane Anderson Awards for the best Canadian science books published in the previous year. Selections are made based on a title’s pertinence to science in today’s world and the author’s ability to relate scientific issues to everyday life. Prolific Halifax kids’ science writer L.E. Carmichael was awarded the YA prize for “Fuzzy Forensics: DNA Fingerprinting Gets Wild” (Ashby-BP Publishing), about using forensic science to fight crimes against animals. Uxbridge, Ontario–based environmental journalist Stephen Leahy received the adult prize for “Your Water Footprint” (Firefly Books), which examines human usage of the valuable natural resource. http://laneandersonaward.ca/The Edmonton Public Library has named Sigmund Brouwer (author and Rock & Roll Literacy Show host) as the winner (by public vote) of Alberta Reader’s Choice Award. Sigmund’s “Thief of Glory” (WaterBrook Press) is about a young boy trying to take care of his family in the aftermath of the 1942 Japanese Imperialist invasion of the Southeast Pacific. The prize awards $10,000 to an Alberta-based author of a work of excellent fiction or narrative non-fiction. http://www.epl.ca/alberta-readers-choiceHarperCollins Canada, the Cooke Agency, and the University of British Columbia have announced the shortlist of the annual HarperCollins Publishers/UBC Prize for Best New Fiction awarded to students and alumni of UBC’s creative writing program, and offers the winner literary representation by the Cooke Agency and a publishing contract with HarperCollins Canada.“Between the Wind and Us” by Iranian-Canadian writer Nazanine Hozar, the story of a young abandoned girl set during the political unrest of 1953–1979 Iran.“Learning to Breathe” by B.C.-based Janice Lynn Mather, a young adult novel about a Caribbean teenager’s struggle to establish herself in a new city and home life.“At The Top of the Wall, Alight” by Sudbury, Ontario, author Natalie Morrill, which follows a Viennese Jew separated from his family during the Second World War. An early version of this novel was previously nominated for the award.Novelist and University of Guelph writing professor, Thomas King, and L.A.-based author, graphic novelist, and musician, Cecil Castellucci, have been named winners of this year’s Sunburst Awards for excellence in Canadian literature of the fantastic. Castellucci won in the YA category for “Tin Star” (Roaring Brook/Raincoast), the first novel in a planned series about a teenager who struggles to survive parent-less in a space station where she is the only human, and which played scene to a brutal assault that haunts her memory. King won in the adult category for his novel “The Back of the Turtle” (HarperCollins Canada), for which he also received a Copper Cylinder Award from the Sunburst Society last week. The book follows a First Nations scientist who finds himself torn after he’s sent to clean up the ecological mess his company has left on the reserve his family grew up on.Be sure to save October 28th on your calendar for the GG book awards announcement. Of course, “GG” stands for Governor-General. The short lists can be viewed here:http://ggbooks.ca/books/. There are categories in both English and French for both children’s text and illustration books.Online ResourcesPodcast: Yegs and Bacon: Episode 22: the full audio from our recent Indigenous Representation in Popular Culture panel. In the audio, you’ll be hearing from (in order of first vocal appearance) Brandon, who introduces the panelists, James Leask, Richard Van Camp, Kelly Mellings, and Patti Laboucane-Benson. Recorded on Monday, September 28th, 2015. http://variantedmonton.com/category/yegs-and-bacon/European Picture Book Collection: The EPBC was designed to help pupils to find out more about their European neighbours through reading the visual narratives of carefully chosen picture books. Here you can find out about how the project began, the theoretical papers that have been presented on European children's literature, and how the materials were initially used in schools. http://www.ncrcl.ac.uk/epbc/EN/index.aspMore next time around,Yours in stories, Gail de VosGail de Vos is an adjunct professor who teaches courses on Canadian children's literature, young adult literature, and comic books & graphic novels at the School of Library and Information Studies (SLIS) at the University of Alberta. She is the author of nine books on storytelling and folklore. Gail is also a professional storyteller who has taught the storytelling course at SLIS for over two decades.