From: John Peters <cf071>
Date: Tue, 13 May 1997 11:05:34 -0400 (EDT)

Hello, Friends:
   Ginny, glad you asked for responses to Dateline: Troy--I think it's a fine example of an outstanding idea tarnished by mediocre execution. It's not clear to me from the book's copyright note whether the author did his own searching and clipping or not, but too often the newspaper articles have only a superficial connection to the accompanying passage. Examples: opposite the tale of Patroclus' death, "Tougher tank armor developed by Pentagon", Paris and Helen falling madly in love with each other gets clippings about flirting techniques, and of the two collages that comment on Achilles' confrontation with Agamemnon over Chryseis, the second, about a Darryl Strawberry contract dispute, trivializes the first, which is a report on forced prostitution in World War Two. Paul Fleischman's retelling is exemplary, and I can just see teachers taking Dateline: Troy's premise and running with it, but find the illustrations don't measure up to the rest.

John Peters New York Public Library cf071 at freenet.buffalo.edu
Received on Tue 13 May 1997 10:05:34 AM CDT