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This image has been sourced from online.
y separately published work icon The Big Little Book of Happy Sadness single work   picture book   children's  
Issue Details: First known date: 2008... 2008 The Big Little Book of Happy Sadness
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'George lives with his grandmother and a big empty space where his mother and father should be.

'One Friday on his way home from school, George visits the animal shelter. There, in the very last cage, is Jeremy, a sad dog who looks as lost and lonely as George feels.

'When Jeremy comes home to live with George and his granny, their whole lives change, and they learn that when it comes to love, it's quality not quantity that counts ...' (Publisher's blurb)

Notes

  • This is affiliated with Dr Laurel Cohn's Picture Book Diet because it contains representations of food and/or food practices.

    Food depiction
    • Incidental
    Food types
    • Everyday foods
    • Everyday drinks
    Food practices
    • Food preparation
    • Food serving
    Gender
    • Food preparation - female [domestic]
    • Food serving - female
    Signage n/a
    Positive/negative value n/a
    Food as sense of place
    • Domestic
    Setting
    • Domestic interior
    Food as social cohesion n/a
    Food as cultural identity
    • White Australian characters
    Food as character identity n/a
    Food as language n/a

Affiliation Notes

  • This work is affiliated with the AustLit subset Asian-Australian Children's Literature and Publishing because it has been translated into Korean.

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

    • North Sydney, North Sydney - Lane Cove area, Sydney Northern Suburbs, Sydney, New South Wales,: Random House Australia , 2008 .
      image of person or book cover 1043271447973870191.jpg
      This image has been sourced from online.
      Extent: 32p.
      Description: col. illus.
      Note/s:
      • Publication date: April 2008.
      ISBN: 9781741662566 (hbk.), 9781741662573 (pbk.)
Alternative title: O pequeno grande livro da tristeza feliz
Language: Portuguese
    • Sao Paulo,
      c
      Brazil,
      c
      South America, Americas,
      :
      Brinque Book ,
      2009 .
      image of person or book cover 1265461595300092764.jpg
      This image has been sourced from online.
      Extent: 33 p.p.
      Description: col. illus.
      ISBN: 9788574122700, 857412270X

Other Formats

Works about this Work

What Are We Feeding Our Children When We Read Them a Book? Depictions of Mothers and Food in Contemporary Australian Picture Books Laurel Cohn , 2016 single work criticism
— Appears in: Mothers and Food : Negotiating Foodways from Maternal Perspectives 2016; (p. 232-244)

'This chapter explores how Australian writers and illustrators in the twenty-first century depict the act of mothering in picture books for young children in relation to cooking and serving food. It draws on the idea that children’s texts can be understood as sites of cultural production and reproduction, with social conventions and ideologies embedded in their narrative representations. The analysis is based on a survey of 124 books that were shortlisted for, or won, Children’s Book Council of Australia awards between 2001 and 2013. Of the eighty-seven titles that contain food and have human or anthropomorphised characters, twenty-six (30 percent) contain textual or illustrative references to maternal figures involved in food preparation or provision. Examination of this data set reveals that there is a strong correlation between non-Anglo-Australian maternal figures and home-cooked meals, and a clear link between Anglo-Australian mothers and sugar-rich snacks. The relative paucity of depictions of ethnically unmarked mothers offering more nutritious foods is notable given the cultural expectations of mothers as caretakers of their children’s well-being. At the same time, the linking of non-Anglo-Australian mothers with home-cooked meals can be seen as a means of signifying a cultural authenticity, a closeness to the earth that is differentiated from the normalised Australian culture represented in picture books. This suggests an unintended alignment of mothers preparing and serving meals with “otherness,” which creates a distancing effect between meals that may generally be considered nutritious and the normalised self. I contend there are unexamined, and perhaps unexpected, cultural assumptions about ethnicity, motherhood, and food embedded in contemporary Australian picture books. These have the potential to inscribe a system of beliefs about gender, cultural identity, and food that contributes to readers’ understanding of the world and themselves.'

Source: Abstract.

Untitled Janette Offerman , 2008 single work review
— Appears in: Fiction Focus : New Titles for Teenagers , vol. 22 no. 3 2008; (p. 54)

— Review of The Big Little Book of Happy Sadness Colin Thompson , 2008 single work picture book
Untitled Margaret Robson Kett , 2008 single work review
— Appears in: Fiction Focus : New Titles for Teenagers , vol. 22 no. 3 2008; (p. 54)

— Review of The Big Little Book of Happy Sadness Colin Thompson , 2008 single work picture book
[Review] The Big Little Book of Happy Sadness Aleesah Darlison , 2008 single work review
— Appears in: Books Buzz , April no. 3 2008; (p. 3-4)

— Review of The Big Little Book of Happy Sadness Colin Thompson , 2008 single work picture book
Broken Wings, Missing Legs and Eggs Meg Sorensen , 2008 single work review
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 21-22 June 2008; (p. 32-33)

— Review of How To Heal a Broken Wing Bob Graham , 2008 single work picture book ; The Big Little Book of Happy Sadness Colin Thompson , 2008 single work picture book ; Big Red Hen and the Little Lost Egg Margaret Wild , 2008 single work picture book
Surprises, Tricks and Hope on the Page Jennifer Moran , 2008 single work review
— Appears in: The Canberra Times , 12 April 2008; (p. 16)

— Review of Tomorrow Mark Macleod , 2008 single work picture book ; The Big Little Book of Happy Sadness Colin Thompson , 2008 single work picture book
Broken Wings, Missing Legs and Eggs Meg Sorensen , 2008 single work review
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 21-22 June 2008; (p. 32-33)

— Review of How To Heal a Broken Wing Bob Graham , 2008 single work picture book ; The Big Little Book of Happy Sadness Colin Thompson , 2008 single work picture book ; Big Red Hen and the Little Lost Egg Margaret Wild , 2008 single work picture book
[Review] The Big Little Book of Happy Sadness Aleesah Darlison , 2008 single work review
— Appears in: Books Buzz , April no. 3 2008; (p. 3-4)

— Review of The Big Little Book of Happy Sadness Colin Thompson , 2008 single work picture book
Untitled Margaret Robson Kett , 2008 single work review
— Appears in: Fiction Focus : New Titles for Teenagers , vol. 22 no. 3 2008; (p. 54)

— Review of The Big Little Book of Happy Sadness Colin Thompson , 2008 single work picture book
Untitled Janette Offerman , 2008 single work review
— Appears in: Fiction Focus : New Titles for Teenagers , vol. 22 no. 3 2008; (p. 54)

— Review of The Big Little Book of Happy Sadness Colin Thompson , 2008 single work picture book
What Are We Feeding Our Children When We Read Them a Book? Depictions of Mothers and Food in Contemporary Australian Picture Books Laurel Cohn , 2016 single work criticism
— Appears in: Mothers and Food : Negotiating Foodways from Maternal Perspectives 2016; (p. 232-244)

'This chapter explores how Australian writers and illustrators in the twenty-first century depict the act of mothering in picture books for young children in relation to cooking and serving food. It draws on the idea that children’s texts can be understood as sites of cultural production and reproduction, with social conventions and ideologies embedded in their narrative representations. The analysis is based on a survey of 124 books that were shortlisted for, or won, Children’s Book Council of Australia awards between 2001 and 2013. Of the eighty-seven titles that contain food and have human or anthropomorphised characters, twenty-six (30 percent) contain textual or illustrative references to maternal figures involved in food preparation or provision. Examination of this data set reveals that there is a strong correlation between non-Anglo-Australian maternal figures and home-cooked meals, and a clear link between Anglo-Australian mothers and sugar-rich snacks. The relative paucity of depictions of ethnically unmarked mothers offering more nutritious foods is notable given the cultural expectations of mothers as caretakers of their children’s well-being. At the same time, the linking of non-Anglo-Australian mothers with home-cooked meals can be seen as a means of signifying a cultural authenticity, a closeness to the earth that is differentiated from the normalised Australian culture represented in picture books. This suggests an unintended alignment of mothers preparing and serving meals with “otherness,” which creates a distancing effect between meals that may generally be considered nutritious and the normalised self. I contend there are unexamined, and perhaps unexpected, cultural assumptions about ethnicity, motherhood, and food embedded in contemporary Australian picture books. These have the potential to inscribe a system of beliefs about gender, cultural identity, and food that contributes to readers’ understanding of the world and themselves.'

Source: Abstract.

Last amended 20 Nov 2018 10:29:26
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