In an amazing contrast....

[conuly]

A few weeks ago I reviewed Abby Carnelia's One and Only Magical Power. I mostly liked the book, except that it had a lot of what I felt - and still feel! - was very clunky writing.

I should've just said that, but I was hopped up on a night of TVTropes and instead wrote a super duper long review. Which I was a little embarrassed over, but not enough to edit later. (It's not my best review ever.)

Now, when you write a critical review, even if it's just a little critical, you're likely to get replies from people who are personally offended that you might care what the capital of Turkey is, or that you think it'd be nice for there to be more than 0 black people in an alphabet book, that sort of thing. (And let me tell you, I am positively generous with points when I'm giving a critical review!)

So I was pleasantly surprised by the response by the author. What's this? No hissy fit? No temper tantrum? DUDE.

Admittedly, my surprise has a lot to do with the recent Christopher Pike fiasco. In the normal course of things I'd just smile a little, but now I'm making a post to say two things:

1. THIS is how you handle comments. You reply in a civil and polite manner, and you do so openly and honestly without hiding your identity in any way.

2. Aside from what I considered clunky writing, I liked the book. The premise (and the hidden premise behind it) was actually pretty interesting, and the plot moved along nicely. Would I suggest you pick it up as an adult who happens to read YA? Maybe not. Would I suggest you pick it up for your kid, classroom, or library? Definitely. It's not a must-have book, just a nice one, but I'll pass on any number of must-haves for an author who is also a good (or at least decent) role model. (And for that matter, not many books do fit my list of "must-haves", so it's no criticism to say this isn't one of them. That list is never longer than 10 or 15 books long... and I've got more books than that on my mantel! Eva's kindergarten teacher today said it's okay to re-read books for the book log because "you may not have 40 books at home" and I just quietly sighed to myself. NOT HAVE 40 BOOKS? Do they at least go to the library?)

Comments

[leora.livejournal.com]

One thought about the recapping, while it drives me nuts to see excessive recapping (the worst example I ever read was a recap of something that happened two pages ago... come on, two pages ago...), it might be useful for some children having trouble with reading. When I was staying with a friend who had a sibling who was fairly young at the time and wasn't really into reading, I discussed it with the child. She liked reading, but couldn't get into longer books. The problem turned out to be that her memory was simply not good enough to contain the story. By the time she was partway into a chapter book, she had forgotten the earlier parts, and so it was pointless. This sort of writing might be useful for other children with that problem.

Of course, if you don't need it, it's really annoying. And none of that justifies resummarizing the events of two pages ago.

[conuly]

That is a good point. This book is thick enough and long enough that I doubt this is going to be an issue with most of the children reading it, but it's not totally impossible either.

At any rate, even though I found the style a bit annoying, I do see that there is a *big* difference between a conscious stylistic choice (even one I dislike) and somebody just not knowing any better.