From: Miriam Lang Budin <miriammeister_at_gmail.com>
Date: Sun, 15 Nov 2009 11:42:06 -0500

I was lucky to be trained in book reviewing by typing hundreds--perhaps thousands--of reviews written by Zena Sutherland when I worked for her at the "Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books" while in library school. Zena combined discerning taste with succinct and pithy language (and a steely sense of humor) that told her readers what they needed to know without wasting their time. I'd love to be as good at reviewing as she was.

I've reviewed for SLJ, Kirkus, Horn Book Guide and three library systems. I feel my obligations as a reviewer are to give the book a fair reading and to let librarians know whether it is worth purchasing and, if so, how well worth it and for whom. Though I try to respect how much effort, thought and time an author has put into the book, I do think that my primary task, since I am reviewing for professional journals and other librarians, is to consider how they might best spend their book budgets.

The hardest reviews for me to write are for Horn Book Guide where we are limited to 60 words. It is impossible to analyze in any depth given those constraints, but it is certainly possible to mention the strengths and shortcomings of the book in question, even if I have to use the sort of professional shorthand where we refer to "undeveloped characters" or "overburdened plot."

SLJ allows for a more expansive review, even extending to allowing an illuminating quotation to give a flavor of the writing. What a luxury! Still, a paragraph or two cannot allow for nuanced discussion. My focus is on stating who will benefit from reading or using the book and why or why not? Since I am aware that SLJ reviews make their way onto the internet in various ways, I try to be careful when expressing negativity. I find it easy to write enthusiastically, but tremendously (and perilously) easier to write scathingly. I do try to keep that under wraps in public.

I'm not reviewing for Kirkus, at present, but I remember the word limitations there to be in between those of SLJ and Horn Book Guide. I also seem to remember being more ascerbic for Kirkus than for SLJ. I'm not certain why.

The easiest reviews are those I write for the library system where I am working. They will never be published and the people reading them all know me, so I can speak my mind without worrying about any tender feelings on the part of the author or illustrator.

Some day I'd like to be one of those people who get to write lengthy reviews in the NYTimes Book Review and spend a paragraph or two writing about some tangential issue before I even start to discuss the book and tell stories about how I read the books to my children and what adorable things they had to say while I was doing so. But for now, I must try to give the books a fair shake while sticking to word limits and deadlines.

I hope my reviews are helpful. I know they are not works of art.

Miriam -- Miriam Lang Budin Head of Children's Services Chappaqua Library, NY
Received on Sun 15 Nov 2009 11:42:06 AM CST