Making fun of Amazon reviews again.

Listen to this one:

I haven't read this book nor do I plan to buy it for my first-grade niece because in reading only the sample provided by Amazon, I found grammatical errors. The Juny B. books are just as bad, and just as annoying. When did this become appropriate in Children's Literature? And why am I the only one annoyed by it? It's not charming. Ending sentences with prepositions, for example, is incorrect, and it shouldn't matter if the story is told from a child's point of view. I want my niece to learn the correct way to write and to speak (and behave, for that matter!), and it seems that the Clementine books are as poor of an example as Juny B.

I will NOT be buying this book or any other that provides a poor example to children of how to write and speak.

Ending a sentence with a preposition! Horrors! Shakespeare... actually, he totally did that, let's not be too sarcastic here.

At any rate, I thought I'd peruse the sample to see the terrible sentence in action. Ah. I've found it. Roughly, it says "She threw herself across the mask she was gluing sparkles onto".

Now, you tell me how you can rephrase that so it sounds natural in the mouth of a third grader. Because I've never yet heard the eight year old who said "Across the mask onto which she was gluing sparkles", and if I did I wouldn't know what to say.

Then there's "I got glue in my hair and was just trying to cut it out..." which doesn't count as it's a cut off sentence, so we're still good.

My god. And for this the woman gives a book she hasn't even read a one-star review! The madness has got to end.

Also, do people even LOOK at what they're writing?

So here's a review of A Great and Terrible Beauty, which I could barely even get through.

The reviewer mentions some elements she considers racist.

Let's look at the comments!

The fact that Gemma is greatly attracted to Kartik--a fact expressed throughout the book--is proof that the author is not supporting racist theories.

Really? REALLY? So it's only racist if you're not lusting after hot, exotic Indian (from India) guys? Because racists have never had a double standard in this respect. Because it's not possible to have some racist attitudes while still thinking of yourself as oh-so-enlightened, it's an all or nothing deal. (Actually, I'll bet that this is EXACTLY what this commenter thinks, and it's not so funny.)

Oh, and a pair of comments, one replying to the other.

1. to everyone who disagrees with the OP:

portraying a "gypsy" as a mystical magical forest dwelling criminal is just feeding into stereotypes and anyway "gypsies" do not speak ROMANIAN (Unless they live in Romania) ROMANI is not ROMANIAN, it's a completely different language. its appalling but not surprising that the editor didn't even care enough to catch or repair this factual error.

its the same as saying all eskimos live in igloos and all chinese smoke opium and run around pulling rikshaws or all americans ride horses, wear cowboy hats and say 'howdy howdy howdy y'all.' it is DEFINITELY racist by default. it is racist because the author didn't even bother to do research. she just went

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The other day I picked up, out of curiosity, a postcard about a new elementary school on SI

They're opening it up on Daniel Low Terrace.

As it happens, there already *is* an elementary school on Daniel Low Terrace, or right nearby. That's PS 16. It's, uh, it's not a long street.

I'm glad they're starting new elementary schools in this area. It's long overdue - people have been complaining all over the city about a need for new kindergartens for years! That's why Ana and Evangeline are in their school, actually - it was opened in part to handle overflow from another school over by Snug Harbor.

Unfortunately, that's kinda the problem. The same kids who started this push for new elementary schools, the oldest of them are in the third grade now, or the fourth. How long is it going to take the city to build new middle schools, new high schools? Curtis High School, for example, is at 156% of capacity. How much worse will it be in another few years? The class size at IS 61 is currently 33 students. The year after I left, they added more classes per grade. How much worse will it be when these kids hit the 6th grade?

Of course, you tell people, and they kinda nod, but they don't do anything until their kids are in the crowded classrooms, and then it's all a big surprise. Wow, who could've POSSIBLY seen this coming?

*headdesk*

Well, with any luck we'll have a new school - and NOT the one that opened up by the Mall, that's a hellish commute - by the time Ana's in the 6th grade.