There were tears,a tantrum,and finally,a three-year-old whose dreams came true when she walked into Book Week as Elsa. I felt defeated by commercial forces that were more powerful than my parental guidance.
WhenBluey:The Beach, a book based on the storyline of an episode of the TV series,won the Australian Book Industry’s Book of the Yearin 2020,it raised all sorts of questions. What is a kids’ book? What should a kids’ book be? Am I a narky purist for turning my nose up at a television franchise winning a literary prize? Is it better for kids to read something over nothing given our nation’sdeclining literacy rates?
But something about kids rocking up to Book Week in Elsa and Spider-Man costumes really gets my Billy Goat Gruff,even though I know first-hand how hard they are to avoid.
“There’s a quiet frustration among children’s writers who are up against very talented screenwriters whose work is being turned into books,” a children’s writer told me. How is anyone meant to compete againstBluey?
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The trend for popular characters across different media to be channelled “into a single commercial system erases the boundaries between primary and secondary texts,enabling primary texts (such as television series and video games) to function as promotional material for other primary texts (such as movies and toys),and vice versa,” Marsha Kinder wrote inPlaying with Power in Movies,Television,and Video Games:From Muppet Babies to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
The commercialisation of stories across mediums leads to never-ending recycling:TV shows become books and multi-instalment movie franchises. Disney films become video games,books,cartoon series,Disneyland rides,toys,T-shirts and costumes that can be pulled out of the dress-up box come Book Week.