From: Kathleen Horning <horning>
Date: Mon, 19 Feb 1996 11:50:00 -600

I finally got a chance to look up the New York Times Book Review of
"What Jamie Saw" after Nina made a reference to it last week. The reviewer, Janet Bode, is the author of several nonfiction books for teens on issues such as rape and teen pregnancy. In contrast to NYTBR's usual practices, she seems, at least on the surface, to have been a fairly logical choice as a reviewer of a book dealing with domestic violence. At least her area of expertise is in the ballpark.

Not surprisingly, she approaches "What Jamie Saw" as if it were a book of information for teenagers, instead of a work of fiction for children. She devotes three paragraphs to the language used in the book, comparing to the way real teen victims of domestic violence describe their experiences, and concludes that since it's not the way kids really talk, they wouldn't be able to understand the book. Huh?
 It strikes me as a rather lame argument and certainly doesn't bear any reality to the way in which language actually works. Following her argument, we might propose that the average four year old is unable to understand Sesame Street because he couldn't write the script for it.

Most of the review centers on the notion that "What Jamie Saw" is too sophisticated for its intended audience (which she believes to be nine year olds since that's how old Jamie is and since the flap copy says it's for "ages 10 and up"). She uses the language argument as her sole supporting evidence. I think, however, that she underestimates the abilities of nine year olds. Whenever I work with readers in the 8 age bracket, I am always amazed at what they are able to comprehend. Content-wise, they are capable of taking in a great deal and wrestling with topics I might think are far beyond their experience or intrests. I think the issue of personal safety in "What Jamie Saw" would grab them from the beginning and hold their attention. The author made a very good choice to put Jamie in a situation where he was both protected (by his mother) and protecting
(of his younger sister). This sort of compare/contrast is taken for granted by adult readers but it enables young readers an opportunity to explore deeper themes -- differences and similarities within manageable limits. She also offered them a very concrete literary image with the magic book and Jamie's interest in magic tricks which would afford young readers with plenty of "hey yeah!" epiphanies as they explored the metaphorical uses of magic throughout the book (and perhaps even grasped the irony of the fact that the magic book had been a gift from Van).

I disagree with Janet Bode that the structure would be too sophisticated for nine-year-old readers. Structurally it is actually pretty straightforward: it begins with a gripping image of a baby being thrown and a late-night escape, and from there on, it moves forward to its climax and resolution, following three main characters and a couple of secondary ones. Where is the difficulty in that? Structure is often a bigger problem for this age group than content but in my experience what makes books difficult for these readers is lots of characters introduced in chapter one; flashbacks that aren't clearly indicated as such; jumps in time within the same chapter; not enough description of things that might not be familiar to young readers; and multiple points of view. "What Jamie Saw" has none of these features.

But that's just my opinion. What do others think? Do you agree with the NYTBR that "What Jamie Saw" is too sophisticated for its intended audience?

KT Horning, CCBC UW-Madison
Received on Mon 19 Feb 1996 11:50:00 AM CST