In the midst of my various life projects right now I’m working on a series of children’s books and, let me tell you, academic writing is ‘way easier! Since my son was born in 2014 this research practice has been ongoing for the last eight years. My brain has been divided into two halves: educational philosophy on one side and The Octonauts on the other. I can swap them out for Ms. Frizzle, Storybots, or the new He-Man as they all do the same thing for their audience (and I’m including myself here!). Episode after episode they reframe whatever world they exist in through hope.
My first freelance piece for Chatelaine focused on reframing my family’s mental health through the power of cartoons. And on our Reframeables Podcast I talk a lot about narrative reframing. For me it is the process of reorienting life through the stories we tell. That turnaround is something I strive for in every piece I write, in what I choose to read and the art I find myself drawn to out there in the world. It’s a process that requires a certain kind of care because reorientation can devolve into a directionless spin without a grounding rod to grab hold of. And perhaps that explains my bent to cartoons and children’s stories.
My sister who knows me well has said that I tend to summarize big conversations. She’s right, though I recognize of myself that I’m not doing it for the person I’m speaking to. I’m doing it for me! I have seen that same summarizing play out at the end of so many She-Ra episodes (or Dead End or Centaur World): characters extrovertedly trying to make some positive meaning of whatever hard thing they are going through. And there are so many. The grounding rod moment near the end of the episode helps the potential spin of discontent or sadness or trauma to stop for a moment, halted with a summary sentence that may not change the painful circumstance, but at least tries to help us all make some sense of it before the onslaught begins again. The writers of these shows get me! And in my own children’s books I hope to offer a similar grounding force to young readers who come to words and stories with fresh eyes and big hearts, working through what it means to be human in a broken (but also magical) world.
I love this. Summaries are hard for me. I like to live in the full story ha. In sign language, its based on context and is topic, comment, topic. So, in a way, they summarize everything they say. Cool huh?!