From: lschubert at doe.state.vt.us <lschubert>
Date: Wed, 23 Sep 1998 09:55:24 CDT

I have enormous respect and admiration for those of you - Janice and her staff, the Booklist staff, SLJ, etc. - who review so many books in print every month. As a former SLJ reviewer, I would agonize about every review. I know that the author/illustrator pours heart and soul into each book, and I never took that lightly, even if the book was a total failure. But first impressions change, too, and a book that makes a strong impact may have been forgotten six months later - and the reverse is also true. Now I do statewide oral reviews - it's not exactly a piece of cake, but if someone quotes me to myself and it sounds idiotic, I tell her she must have misheard - I would never have said anything so dumb. You can't do that with print.

Re Eleanora Tate's question last week about the one "thumbs down" review among a positive bunch - I think reviewing is so much about learning to trust yourself - to trust your knowledge, intuition and experience; to learn to express yourself clearly based on the Book and not your agenda for the book; to continually develop your critical eye.
 If you're the only thumbs-down on a book, it's difficult to not become insecure. Also, we all bring, as you know, all of ourselves to each book - our sensibility, our experiences, our heart and mind. So of course we respond differently. We need to know ourselves, consequently.
( If the dog dies in the book, I don't want to read it.) Which is why, as Janice said, it helps to learn the predilections of the individual reviewers and figure out whose opinions you can trust.

I appreciate Janice's recurring comments about over-illustrated books. There are too many of them. Leda

from Janice:> their sign whole

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Leda Schubert Vermont Department of Education lschubert at doe.state.vt.us 802?8842
Received on Wed 23 Sep 1998 09:55:24 AM CDT