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[CCBC-Net] Great ideas and a couple of questions
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From: wwilson2
Date: Wed, 13 Dec 2000 23:28:10 -0500
I love all the suggestions you are sending! How do the review periodicals choose which books to review? They seem to leave out so many.
However, I'm always surprised when I see a favorable review of Adeline Falling Star. It seemed to me to be so superficial, so improbable as to be impossible (e.g. the dog and the steamship explosion), and full of stereotypical characters (They are probably accurate, but still...). And the girl herself is so stubborn that she brings a great deal of trouble on herself (albeit living with those people would tempt anyone to be a bit recalcitrant). And what kind of father would just dump her that way in a world that he knew would hate her? I just don't feel that it added anything to our understanding of the world at that time or to human nature of our own time. But maybe that's just me. (Sorry, I didn't mean to come on so strong.)
For a more positive note, I loved the just short of being sappy (but well handled enough to be saved) because of Winn-Dixie. I also love the books of short stories by Diana Wynne Jones called Believing Is Seeing. Yes, she writes fantasy, but not the usual hero quest, the long lost and unknown prince, the shoulders back deterined-to?-as-good-as-a-boy heroine. Her writing is always so...on the move. She waltzes with words. She picks up the plot and runs with it, rather than letting it unfold. I like the first Derkhelm book, which I first read this year,
(haven't read the second), but I really like some of her older things that are out of print now, like Dogsbody, or The Ogre Downstairs. Eight Days of Luke.
And I laughed till my sides ached when reading Angus, Thongs, and Full Frontal Snogging. So did my teenaged daughter. The ending is one of the best I've ever seen.
Happy holidays!
Cassie Wilson
Received on Wed 13 Dec 2000 10:28:10 PM CST
Date: Wed, 13 Dec 2000 23:28:10 -0500
I love all the suggestions you are sending! How do the review periodicals choose which books to review? They seem to leave out so many.
However, I'm always surprised when I see a favorable review of Adeline Falling Star. It seemed to me to be so superficial, so improbable as to be impossible (e.g. the dog and the steamship explosion), and full of stereotypical characters (They are probably accurate, but still...). And the girl herself is so stubborn that she brings a great deal of trouble on herself (albeit living with those people would tempt anyone to be a bit recalcitrant). And what kind of father would just dump her that way in a world that he knew would hate her? I just don't feel that it added anything to our understanding of the world at that time or to human nature of our own time. But maybe that's just me. (Sorry, I didn't mean to come on so strong.)
For a more positive note, I loved the just short of being sappy (but well handled enough to be saved) because of Winn-Dixie. I also love the books of short stories by Diana Wynne Jones called Believing Is Seeing. Yes, she writes fantasy, but not the usual hero quest, the long lost and unknown prince, the shoulders back deterined-to?-as-good-as-a-boy heroine. Her writing is always so...on the move. She waltzes with words. She picks up the plot and runs with it, rather than letting it unfold. I like the first Derkhelm book, which I first read this year,
(haven't read the second), but I really like some of her older things that are out of print now, like Dogsbody, or The Ogre Downstairs. Eight Days of Luke.
And I laughed till my sides ached when reading Angus, Thongs, and Full Frontal Snogging. So did my teenaged daughter. The ending is one of the best I've ever seen.
Happy holidays!
Cassie Wilson
Received on Wed 13 Dec 2000 10:28:10 PM CST
