Christmas shopping

If you haven’t voted on my little sidebar poll, please do. I’m getting the message that quite a lot of students are checking in here.

Sorry about the post title (me, I’ll just be doing vouchers) but Hallowe’en is over and the Christmas advertising has started. Will you be  buying books for children?

Oops, I need to deconstruct that phrase! Does it mean

• buying  ‘books for children’ or
• ‘buying books’ for children or even
• ‘buying “books for children” for children’?

Oh dear, I think the course is getting to me.

Anyway, is your buying likely to be affected by your studies?  Is the course getting to you?

• Have you been put off by Thomas the Tank Engine and his sexist and classist environment?
• Will you ever look at ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ in the same way again?
• Do you have doubts about imposing authors’  ideologies on your nearest and dearest?

For a real sideways look at an apparently very simple children’s picture book, take yourself off here and read the funny (or is it tragic?)   ‘The Construction of Meaning and the Self De(con)struction of Identity: A Hippo-Critical Analysis of Jeff Newman’s Hippo! No, Rhino!’  At a stretch, you might even find some ideologies there that you can wield in your next assignment.