In:Maps and Mapping in Children's Literature: Landscapes, seascapes and cityscapes
Edited by Nina Goga and Bettina Kümmerling-Meibauer
[Children’s Literature, Culture, and Cognition 7] 2017
► pp. 113–128
Chapter 6“New York just like I pictured it – skyscrapers and everything”
Published online: 14 August 2017
https://doi.org/10.1075/clcc.7.07kat
https://doi.org/10.1075/clcc.7.07kat
Abstract
Maps of New York City, whether visual or verbal, evoke an abundance of scripts and schemas related to adolescent romance, adventure, and coming-of-age. Some of these are associated with iconic sights, for example, the Empire State Building and the ‘romantic rendezvous’ script. In these texts New York is a storyworld grounded on a map that exists outside of the narrative but is built from the blend of disparate New York schemas: those called upon by the focalizing characters and those held in the mind of the reader. In Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist (2006) and Dash and Lily’s Book of Dares (2010), the coming-of-age romance begins with a map, and the mapping of script onto storyworld is enriched by intertextual links with music, poetry, and literature. The intertextual meaning-making combined with the active blending of New York City schemas that occur in the background emphasize the complexity of intersubjective development.
Article outline
- A cognitive map of young love in New York City
- “The real wild” and “the center of the world”: Manhattan as spectacle
- Mapping possibilities for growth onto real world locations
- Cross-linking storyworlds: Intertexts and intermedia
- A specific experience of space and time
Note References
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