CAA: Christian Anime Alliance

i need help.

no, not mental help..er well yes-that too, but not NOW.

i need help on my satire thing. my friend and i are assigned to do a satirical childrens book taht is adressing a major issue or social flaw in general.

any thoughts?

please??

*puppy eyes*

You looking for ideas?

I know of a book you should read that might give you some ideas, but, since it's political in natural, I think I'll just PM you the title. K?

For the sake of being clear, let me try to repeat your request: you need to write a children's book that addresses something you view as a social/political flaw in a satirical manner.

Presuming that is what you mean, that is a very interesting assignment. One key thing: is it meant to be a book that children can understand, explaining the problem on their level? Or is it only a "children's book" in a satirical manner, being meant for adults?

yeah thats right. ^^

its like a 'childrens book.' it sounds like a childrens book, and has pictures and everything, but what it adresses is what adults would understand.

Hmm... Do you want to make an acutual point, or just be funny?


The easy way to do this is to have a book titled, "Charlie's Day" or some other name, and then have "Charlie" be a the center of the satire. Perhaps Charlie is a boy who grew up in an orphanage and ends up being a pyromaniac "Everyone needs a carear," said Charlie's social worker. "What do you want to be when you grow up?" Charlie thought about it for a while and decided, "I want to be a FIREman!" Have the book end with Charlie setting fires all over town, and creating lots of work for the poor bored firemen of the town. The point of the store would be that kids growing up without proper direction can go quite awry.

There's an infinate number of posibilities, I think.

You could satirize corny/cliched children's books.

.rai//

All I can think of is politics simply because politics so easily lends itself to satire.

Oooh! I was just thinking about social security the other day. What if the book was a satire of socialistic ideals like:

The main character is a school kid. The book will follow the children through his/her whole day. The whole day, things will happen which point out absurd programs of redistributing wealth are. For example:

1) The kid gets an "A" on his test, but, just as the teacher finishes distributing the tests, she announces that the school has decided that grading is unfair so everyone is going to be awarding everyone an "A".

2) As the child sits down for a lunch, a teacher walks by and says that the cookie she/he has is unfair, since many of the other students don't have cookies. The teacher then takes the cookie and redistributes it.

Just stuff like that.

Of course I've written a children's book! Kids can hardly read as it is, so how hard can it be to write for them?

Ok, sorry, had to quote Strongbad on that one. Anyways, I think this would be a fun assingment. Honestly, if you just pick something that bugs you about politics you could probably almost immediately find a way to create a satire. I think the fireman idea was pretty funny, and the one my sister suggested has some potential too. If you don't like either of those ideas though, seriously, if you just sit down for a minute and think about it you've probably made fun of all kinds of political policies you didn't like before without even thinking about it. Imagine the creative possibilities if you WERE thinking about it.

this reminds me of the calvin and hobbes comic strip

Mrs. Woodworm: "Calvin! Are you chewing gum in class? You are not allowed to chew gum unless you have enough to share with everybody."
Calvin: "I have enough, but I don't think anybody would want it." (All the gum is in his mouth)

Oooh! I was just thinking about social security the other day. What if the book was a satire of socialistic ideals like:

The main character is a school kid. The book will follow the children through his/her whole day. The whole day, things will happen which point out absurd programs of redistributing wealth are. For example:

1) The kid gets an "A" on his test, but, just as the teacher finishes distributing the tests, she announces that the school has decided that grading is unfair so everyone is going to be awarding everyone an "A".

2) As the child sits down for a lunch, a teacher walks by and says that the cookie she/he has is unfair, since many of the other students don't have cookies. The teacher then takes the cookie and redistributes it.

Just stuff like that.

i hate stuff like that. XD that would make me so mad if techers did that. i would be like AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
but thats a good idea.

my friend and i brainstormed (we are working in partners) and we thought of something. you know how everything is being commercialized these days? 'buy a star! its yoru own star!" 'by an acre on the moon! your own acre!' well, we decided that since there are so many hurricanes, that they could end up being marketed too. like 'BUY YOUR OWN HURRICANE!! ' ...or something.

Let me suggest advertising.

It's not so controversial that you'd get in trouble, but it could be funny.

Write a children's book but make it mention brand names constantly. It could be commentary on how there are commerials everywhere these days.

hm...good idea..

Constant use of (TM), (R), (C), etc would work well there. Whenever you mention a noun, make it a brand name with (TM) after it.

ahaha! lets go to the Store (C)!! we can buy some soap (TM)!!

chibiphonebooth wrote:ahaha! lets go to the Store (C)!! we can buy some soap (TM)!!

nononon! it has to be like.... "I just ate a yagdrasolvel! (TM)" or something weird.....

or like "This is.... THE PLACE (TM)"

lol FINE! GOSH!! UIGH!

thanks for your ideas guys!!

if you ahve anymore..taht would be cool. we were inspireddd ooo!

The advertising idea is by far my favorite. That could become very funny very quickly.

Mangafanatic wrote:Oooh! I was just thinking about social security the other day. What if the book was a satire of socialistic ideals like:

I think critiquing social ideas has been done by basically every dystopic science fiction story ever. Harrison Bergeron comes to mind in your specific example. It might be equally as interesting to critique how we justify our social realities.

With satire, you need to be careful how to handle it. With politics, for example, you will probably alienate 50% of your readers if you take a side.

Of course advocacy satire can be done cleverly to make a point: Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal" makes a statement about the treatment of Irish by the English in the 19th century. Citizen Ruth rather cleverly satired both the pro-abortion and pro life movements as focussing on symbols and not individuals (be warned, it is rated R)

Whatever you decide to satire, be sure to research how it really works. If you want to show the heads of the oil industry (for example) are filthy evil, make sure they are filthy evil. The more extreme the satire, the more alienated the people will become.

yeah, i think im gunna do the advertising one. XD that was a really good idea.

thanks!

I(TM) think that the advertising idea (R) is a very good(TM) idea(TM).