Wise Owl: Talking and Thinking about Children’s Literature
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Description
"Dragons and Giants" is a story about bravery. But it doesn't exactly demonstrate what bravery is, or explain how to tell whether someone is brave. Instead it shows what bravery is not (running away from danger and hiding in a bed or a closet) and how not to tell whether you are brave (by, say, looking in a mirror). Both children and adults laugh at Frog's and Toad's foolish behavior and at the foolishness of what they say. Our laughter shows that we recognize an inappropriateness, a conceptual gap between bravery and the efforts of these creatures to deal with it. Our amusement can cajole us into reflecting on why we laugh, on what bravery really is, and on how we can tell whether someone is brave.
Publication Date
1988
Publisher
Sundance Publishers & Distributors, Inc.
Keywords
children's literature, philosophy for children, ethics, bravery, irony
Disciplines
Education | Philosophy
Recommended Citation
Matthews, Gareth B.; Reilly, Lenore Carlisle; and Tishman, Shari, ""Dragons and Giants" from Frog and Toad Together by Arnold Lobel" (1988). Wise Owl: Talking and Thinking about Children’s Literature. 6.
https://digitalcommons.montclair.edu/iapc_wiseowl/6
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