I’ve entered a Graduate studies program in Children’s Literature. I’ll be getting an MFA (Masters in Fine Arts) degree which essentially means I’ll have to produce a novel as my thesis.

I had my first class today: History and Criticism of Children’s Literature. It’s basically the introductory course. The class was scheduled to be 3 hours, but based on my experiences in undergrad… I figured on the first day we wouldn’t meet the whole time. I was wrong.

I also received my first assignment which will be a presentation to the class focused on a certain approach of literary criticism. We drew our “brand of criticism” at random, and I got…. *drumroll* …. MARXIST. This was kind of the one I didn’t want, but it’s easy and I already have an idea.

I think I’m going to apply Marxist criticism to Patrick Carman’s Atherton series. I’ve read the first two books in the series, and have been wanting to read the third (in fact I already downloaded it on my Kindle).

I need to put the finishing touches on my homework for tomorrow’s class (Craft of Children’s Lit). We had to take notes on this year’s Newbery Winner When You Reach Me.

I’ll let you know my thoughts on the book after we discuss it tomorrow!