ewein2412

Doing our thing for SmartPop's Demigods and Monsters, which I have got an essay in. Sara and Mark have both reviewed the film The Lightning Thief here.

For a different view of things, try

rachelmanija's furious and frankly baffled review of the film here (I enjoyed the review, and the comments, very much). I confess I would not have made it through the first of these books, let alone the first three, if I had not already signed up to produce the essay. The Adbooks listserv raved about Lightning Thief (as did the whole children's lit scene) and I had overly high expectations for it. I think this is yet another series that is RIGHT ON TARGET with its target audience--Sara adores these books--and I am way outside the target. I am always seriously bugged by this. It's not that I dislike the series--I just find it dull and samey. WHY??? And is my failure to connect with these hugely popular books related to my own books "missing the target"? Hmmm.

Incidentally, when I was doing a boatload of reading for the Children's Literature New England seminar in 2007, I kept notes on the required books I'd read in order to be able to review them just before the lectures. I noticed that I was always trying to find good in everything I read, some redeeming thing to say about the book that was positive, even if I didn't really like it. And I realized that in fact I was fooling myself--for me, there is no in between. I either like the book or I hate it. The reaction is polar. This is why I never give a star rating to children's books on my Goodreads reviews unless the author is dead! Best just to keep it to myself. I might meet the author some day.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

camille-is-here.livejournal.com

And is my failure to connect with these hugely popular books related to my own books "missing the target"? Hmmm.

I keep asking myself the same question for my target audience. What part of what I am doing is sufficiently not like the others that people pick that book but not this book? And, if I could figure out what it was, and tried to do that to my taste, would that make it not like the others anyway? Some people think the answer is "your writing isn't as good, they are just better." but mostly the really popular authors are not great stylists. So the question really is, what is being read as "good" that Dan Brown has (for example) and I do not.

From:

ewein2412

Some people think the answer is "your writing isn't as good, they are just better." but mostly the really popular authors are not great stylists

this is part of the trouble I have in reading them--I crave and adore style. Yet I recently read a great big doorstop romance that had no style and was strangely readable. How did that happen?

Part of what I find ruins a lot of books is something I just want to call "self-consciousness." It ruins a lot of dialogue and acting, too. All of a sudden the prose becomes wooden. You can hear the author thinking aloud, "Now I will surprise the reader. Now I will prove how clever my hero is. Now I will explain everything that my idiot reader will be too stupid to deduce. Now I will be very poetic and moving. Look how poetic and moving my book is! OK, get ready for a BIG CLIMAX." I LOVE a book to be poetic and moving, but I really resent being clunked on the head and having it pointed out to me.

Anyway what I was going to say was that one of the complaints I do get is that my style is "too difficult" or "too literary" so I can only assume that I write what I like to read. And maybe that is true of you as well.

Only.... there was that big chunky fluffy romance, which I enjoyed. I remain bewildered.

From:

camille-is-here.livejournal.com

In stuff I read, I like a style that doesn't get in the way of untangling a nice juicy set of complex characters. I like to work for it with characters who reveal themselves in paradoxical glimpses.

From:

ewein2412

plot is character, character is plot! I totally agree. Maybe that is what gets me--self-conscious poetic prose is not enough when the characters aren't wonderful.

From:

camille-is-here.livejournal.com

I think that is it. And I think the big audience wants more straightforward characters. Not badly drawn, but more easily categorized.

From:

estara.livejournal.com

That's a cool triple essay, and it's fun to read your different voices. I highly applaud Sara's professional tone, even referring to you in the third person when talking about your essay. Mark was honest and to the point, you were honest and diplomatic ^^.

From:

ewein2412

thanks! Sara is very, very good at cranking out the prose. Mark is funny because he writes the way he talks--often putting in a lot of asides and parenthetical phrases (WHAAAA????) and extraneous punctuation. It sometimes drives his teachers crazy.

From:

sartorias.livejournal.com

I read it when it first came out, and appreciated how very perfect it was for sixth grade. But its appeal pretty much stopped there, I thought.

From:

zalena.livejournal.com

There are several things I try to keep in mind as a reviewer: 1. respect for the work that went into the book, even if I don't like it. 2. Trying to imagine who would like it, and why; 3. Remembering that most children's literature is for children. My primarily function as a 'reviewer' (vs. a critic) is to let people know what it's about, who might like it, and if there is any material involved of which parents/educators need to be aware.

I am a great believer in 'gateway books,' which is to say books that get people reading regardless of their merit. You never know when something might unlock a reader's curiosity and change the course of their lives... or just turn them into readers. I think what bother me most is not CHILDREN reading books that are meant for them, but ADULTS who are unable to expand their horizons beyond HP, Dan Brown, etc.

From:

ewein2412

the distinction between "reviewer" and "critic" is a very important one, and I hadn't really thought about it. My so-called "reviews" for Goodreads tend to be simply gut reactions--how much I liked something, what I liked about it. And, partly, I'm just putting them there for myself, because it makes me write down my reaction and I enjoy doing it (and having someone else organize things for me!). But they're not *proper* reviews--they fall short of all the qualities you mention.

What you say about "gateway" books is also a point well-taken, and I am always on the lookout for these as well, as Mark (the nine year old) is not much of a reader. I have gained a huge amount of respect for things like Horrid Henry, Mr. Gum, and "The Simpsons" comic collections simply because they get Mark reading. I'm sure I would have been very disdainful of Horrid Henry if I hadn't had small children reading them--I really do admire Francesca Simon for recognizing that gap and filling it. (Do you know these books? They are very Brit-centric, though the author is an ex-pat American. I don't think they've crossed the Atlantic, but they are hugely popular here. Not sure which side of the pond you sit on!)

From:

houseboatonstyx.livejournal.com

I'm not familiar with these titles, but I certainly agree with you in principle!

The important thing to teach is a habit of love of reading --anything, everything.

Once a child is comfortable with reading and feels at home with his own kind of book -- then he can accept 'challenges'.

From:

rj-anderson.livejournal.com

I didn't connect with THE LIGHTNING THIEF either. And I had the same reaction to Garth Nix's MISTER MONDAY -- didn't even get halfway through that one.

Unlike you, I don't find a lot of books I would say I hate, but I do read a lot that leave me unmoved and vanish from my imagination very quickly. And some which I bounce off for ideological and moral reasons, even though they may be well executed in other respects (helllooo, Pullman).

On the other hand, as you may have noticed, I am positively evangelistic about books I love, and yours happen to be among them. :)

From:

ewein2412

I haven't tried Mister Monday but I really love the Abhorsen trilogy. I would have thought of Pullman in this context even if you hadn't raised him as an issue yourself, because I passionately love His Dark Materials (not so much the last book, when he Lost the Plot)--the ideological stuff bounces off me just as it does in CS Lewis. However, The Tiger in the Well was one of the books I had to read for the CLNE institute, and I couldn't finish it. For one thing, I found it interminably boring, for another full of cliches, and finally it was just like reading Dickens only without Dickens's flair for character and real knowledge of Victorian London. I mean... if you're going to try to do Dickens, you'd better be doing it AWFULLY WELL. Not "just as well." Because you can't. Even if you're Philip Pullman.

Anyway, it astonished me that I could really adore some of Pullman's books and really detest others. And it's true--I *detested* The Tiger in the Well.

I wish I didn't have such visceral reactions to books--it seems to get worse as I get older! Here's another curious thing: I also get very angry at badly edited books. There is a sentence in [unnamed British bestseller], alas one of many similar sentences, that reads: "…she had always thought that part of winning her battle was looking after herself, being someone who still looked after themselves."

No. Just--NO. The author gets the pronoun right in the first half of the sentence, she should get it right in the second half as well. And if she doesn't, HER EDITOR SHOULD. And if her editor doesn't, THE COPYEDITOR SHOULD. THAT IS WHAT THE COPYEDITOR IS FOR. ARGGGGGHHHHHH

That was another book I hated, boy. I just re-read my Goodreads review on it and felt a little bad about it. Maybe I need to take a different line on reviewing.

Why yes, I *have* noticed your evangelistic bent!

From:

tiboribi.livejournal.com

I was thinking of Pullman yesterday when I read this and was feeling too incoherant to respond. Your books are more like His Dark Materials than they are like pop flash in the pan fantasy like books by the Other Scottish Fantasy Lady or Percy Jackson. Or, maybe it is just that I associate His Dark Materials with you, because I read The Northern Lights at your house, after having sworn off Pullman trilogies forever when I waded through the sorry mess that was The Tiger in the Well. But, more seriously, they are carefully written and I think they age better than the ones you reject--both for older audiences, and for sticking in your memory as you grow up.

I have realized that I reject and despise children's books with formulaic stories or poor prose or lack of characterization in a way that I don't in adult's novels, particularly if they aren't fantasy. I recognize it in adult's books, but I read such unbelievably bad books sometimes.

From:

ashfae.livejournal.com

For me, it was all worth it for the hydra. I was way too happy about that hydra. Shiny special effects, yay! (I don't ask a lot from my escapist fantasy movies) (from the books now, that's a different story--haven't read these yet)

(I may have a hydra fetish)

Edited Date: 2010-03-04 04:14 pm (UTC)