From: Dotti <enderle>
Date: Tue, 20 May 2003 05:55:48 -0500

literature is too concerned with bleak, cold, pain and the weird and awful.

Cassie, as I've stated on other lists, I think it's not so much the subject matter, but how the author deals with it. Take Holes for example. Can you think of anything worse than having to go out every day and dig a five-foot hole in 100 degree weather while looking out for rattlesnakes and poisonous lizards? Especially when you know you're innocent? Sachar could have put an entirely different twist on that book.

Many authors look at these subject matters as a challenge. Others add them because they're looking for that nomination for a Printz award. But how they word the bleak, cold, pain, weird and awful, makes all the difference.

Then there's the matter of whether an author writes to win an award, or just to entertain kids. But that's a subject for a different month.

Dotti Enderle Fortune Tellers Club (Llewellyn Worldwide) www.fortunetellersclub.com
  1. The Lost Girl
  2. Playing With Fire
  3. The Magic Shades (Sept. 2003)
  4. Secrets Of Lost Arrow (Jan. 2004)
Received on Tue 20 May 2003 05:55:48 AM CDT