From: Susan Lempke <71460.1037>
Date: Fri, 18 Sep 1998 16:36:51 -0400

Message text written by Tricia Gardella
 get those stars. Do you suppose politics ever comes into
 play?<<

Having reviewed for both the Bulletin and Booklist, I can
 vouch for both of those publications that no, politics never
 comes into play when it comes to stars, the Blue Ribbon list,
 or Editors' Choice. And having reviewed for Roger Sutton
 at the Bulletin, I think I can say with absolute certainty that this
 goes for Horn Book as well.

What sometimes can be a little trickier is friendships and
 professional ties--say you are reviewing a book for a publishing
 house that you also hope will publish something you've written.
 Here I think we all try very very hard to be scrupulously fair, and
 to pass along anything we know we can't judge fairly for one
 reason or another.

I must also say I agree wholeheartedly with John Peters' defense of plot summaries, being a librarian who both writes reviews and buys books. Any discussion of artwork and book design is meaningless without something that tells what a book is *about*. And a skillful reviewer will reveal other things about the book in writing up the summary, as John says.

  --Susan Dove Lempke (Booklist reviewer)
Received on Fri 18 Sep 1998 03:36:51 PM CDT