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AbstractHistoryArchive Description
'Tender Morsels is a dark and vivid story, set in two worlds and worrying at the border between them. It is a gloriously told tale of journeys and transformations, penetrating the boundaries between male and female, reality and myth, conscious and unconscious, temporal and spiritual, human and beast.
'Liga lives modestly in her own personal heaven, given to her by natural magic and in exchange for her earthly life. Her two daughters, gentle Branza and curious Urdda, grow up in this harmonious world, protected from the violence and village prejudice that once made their mother's life unendurable.
'But the real world cannot be denied forever, and gradually the borders break down between Liga's refuge and the place from which she escaped. Having known heaven, how will Liga and her daughters survive back in the world where beauty cannot be separated from cruelty? How far can you take your fantasies before they grow dangerous? How fully can you protect your children, and how completely should you?' (Publisher's blurb)
Australian Popular Medievalism
Notes
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Dedication: 'For my sisters, Susi, Jude and Amanda.'
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Included on the US Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) Best Books for Young Adults 2009 list.
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Other Formats
- Large print.
- Sound recording.
Works about this Work
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Biting Back : Safe Space and Animal Desire in Margo Lanagan's Tender Morsels (2008)
2021
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Marvels & Tales , vol. 35 no. 1 2021;'This article reads Margo Lanagan's Tender Morsels (2008) as an intervention in debates about safe spaces and teenage sexuality. I argue that the novel's creation of a parallel universe in which characters are kept safe from sexual trauma functions as a critique of the notion of safe space, whereas the trope of animal transformation is used to address conflicting aspects of male teenage sexuality. Drawing on these themes, the novel formulates an alternative approach to the challenges of trauma and recovery that stresses strength and resilience, arguing that the hardships of reality must be faced head-on.' (Publication abstract)
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Crossover Fiction and the Adolescent Economy of Writing in the Works of Margo Lanagan
2019
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Textual Practice , August vol. 33 no. 6 2019; (p. 1005-1023) 'Recent years have seen the rise of crossover fiction that is marketed as young adult literature but also attracts a large adult audience. While critics have addressed this phenomenon as a symptom of the demise of traditional understandings of adulthood, they have not yet given sufficient attention to the innovative ways in which authors have responded to the crossover phenomenon by radically recasting adolescence. This article places Julia Kristeva’s work on the adolescent economy of writing in dialogue with the major works of Margo Lanagan, who is often described as the quintessential crossover writer. I show that Lanagan divorces adolescence from its traditional association with individualism and reimagines it as an age-independent psychological phenomenon that is characterised by an opening of the self to (non)human others and to the realm of the social. This notion of adolescence is not only the dominant theme in Lanagan’s writings, it also emerges as a style and disposition of her texts, generating new narrative possibilities in the management of plot, focalisation and voice. Reading Lanagan alongside Kristeva reveals the centrality of the aesthetic in Kristeva’s view of adolescence, while also allowing us to see possibilities in the adolescent economy of writing that remain underexplored in Kristeva’s work.' (Publication abstract) -
Strategic, Stylistic and Notional Intertextuality : Fairy Tales in Contemporary Australian Fiction
2018
single work
criticism
— Appears in: TEXT Special Issue Website Series , no. 43 2018;'While Canadian scholar Lisa M Fiander argues that fairy tales are ‘everywhere’ in Australian fiction, this paper questions that assertion. It considers what it means for a fairy tale to be ‘in’ a work of contemporary fiction, and posits a classificatory system based on the vocabulary of contemporary music scholarship where a distinction is made between intertextuality that is stylistic and that which is strategic. Stylistic intertextuality is the adoption of features of a style or genre without reference to specific examples, while strategic intertexuality references specific prior works.
'Two distinct approaches to strategic fairy-tale revision have emerged in Australian writing in recent decades. One approach, exemplified in works by writers including Kate Forsyth, Margo Lanagan and Juliet Marillier, leans towards the retelling of European fairy tales. Examples include Forsyth’s The Beast’s garden (‘Beauty and the Beast’), Lanagan’s Tender morsels (‘Snow White and Rose Red’) and Marillier’s short story ‘By bone-light’ (‘Vasilisa the Beautiful’). The other, more fractured, approach is exemplified in works by writers including Carmel Bird and Murray Bail, which do not retell fairy tales but instead echo them and allude to them.
'This paper proposes that recent Australian works that retell fairy tales are less likely to be set in a recognisably Australian context than are works which take a more fractured approach to fairy tale. It also explores the notion that, presently, transporting European fairy tales, whole, into an Australian setting, seems to be a troubling proposition for writers in a post-colonial settler society that is highly sensitised to, but still largely in denial about, its colonial past.' (Publication abstract)
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Reconsidering The Hypothetical Adolescent In Evaluating And Teaching Young Adult Literature
2016
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy , October vol. 60 no. 2 2016; (p. 163-171)'Courses on teaching young adult literature (YAL) often encourage preservice English language arts teachers to consider their future students as they evaluate texts for classroom use. In this study, Sulzer and Thein analyzed preservice teachers' responses to familiar questions used to frame discussions of YAL-questions that ask them to read on behalf of a hypothetical adolescent reader. Findings suggest that evaluating YAL this way may naturalize myths about who adolescents are, what they care about, and what they are capable of. Understanding and addressing these myths may be beneficial to all who are involved in selecting literature for adolescents.' (Publication abstract)
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Untitled
2010
single work
review
— Appears in: The Horn Book Magazine , January/February vol. 86 no. 1 2010; (p. 108)
— Review of Tender Morsels 2008 single work novel
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Untitled
2008
single work
review
— Appears in: Bookseller + Publisher Magazine , August vol. 88 no. 2 2008; (p. 39)
— Review of Tender Morsels 2008 single work novel -
Abstract Intimacies Amid Senseless Cruelty
2008
single work
review
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 4-5 October 2008; (p. 8-9)
— Review of Tender Morsels 2008 single work novel -
Words Out of Sync
2008
single work
review
— Appears in: The Advertiser , 18 October 2008; (p. 12)
— Review of Tender Morsels 2008 single work novel ; Cooee : A Novel 2008 single work novel -
A Taste of the Dark Stuff
2008
single work
review
— Appears in: The Age , 25 October 2008; (p. 27)
— Review of Tender Morsels 2008 single work novel -
Beware the Man-Bear
2008
single work
review
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 8-9 November 2008; (p. 30)
— Review of Tender Morsels 2008 single work novel -
Dreamers Converge for Fantasy Come True
2008
single work
column
— Appears in: The Canberra Times , 6 October 2008; (p. 6) -
From Temper, Temper to Tender Morsels: An Interview with Margo Lanagan
2009
single work
interview
— Appears in: Studies in Australian Weird Fiction , no. 3 2009; (p. 113-120) -
A Printz Retrospective
2009
single work
criticism
— Appears in: The Horn Book Magazine , July/August vol. 85 no. 4 2009; (p. 395-403) Discusses the winners of the Michael L. Printz Award from 2000 to 2009. -
Tender Hearts and Tough Realities: Too Much Nitty-Gritty?
2009
single work
column
— Appears in: The Canberra Times , 28 November 2009; (p. 16) 'Should classroom books reflect the darker side of life, or is there still a place for escapism? (Source: The Canberra Times (Panorama) 28/11/09 p.16) -
Confronting the Darkness Within
2010
single work
column
— Appears in: The Canberra Times , 27 February 2010; (p. 11)
Awards
- 2009 shortlisted Ditmar Awards — Best Novel
- 2009 joint winner World Fantasy Award — Best Novel Joint winner with Jeff Ford for 'The Shadow Year'
- 2009 finalist Locus Awards — Young Adult Novel
- 2009 honour book Michael L. Printz Award for Excellence in Young Adult Literature
- 2008 nominated Shirley Jackson Awards — Novel