*jawdrop*

[conuly]

In the Times, there's an article-et about the Newberry and Caldecott awards for this year. I'm bored, so I check them out. This one, I think I have to get for Ana. This is her life - windows, dinosaurs, naps - it's perfect!

I'll agree, what I can see of the artwork isn't exactly my style, but I can overlook that for a good enough book.

Yes, this is going to be another edition of Stupid Amazon Reviews.

Congratulations to the author on a wonderful story.The story in this book about the window, the little girl and her grandparents is beautiful. It did not deserve to be part of a mess of scribbles or an inter-racial propaganda. I have done numerous programs with preschool children who would have easily made better pictures for that story.

Okay. Fair complaint: Picking on the artwork. Even if it were Mona Lisa style artwork, you're perfectly allowed to dislike it.

Unfair complaint: OMG! The kid is mixed race! And so are the relatives! OH NOES!!!! It's an agenda, and it RUINS THE BOOK (along with the artwork).

You? Need to shut the fuck up. Say it with me now: Showing people isn't promoting an agenda. There's nothing wrong with being biracial, and saying that isn't promoting an agenda. There's nothing wrong in having a book featuring a mixed-race family that doesn't actively, uh... promote an agenda (which tends to be "There's nothing wrong with us" anyway, which is a fairly innocuous agenda, as agendas go).

Fucking idiot.

Comments

[snale.livejournal.com]

It's been my experience that people who make remarks like "my five year old could draw that" don't generally tend to follow up with intelligent, insightful comments.

[conuly]

She could've at least have stayed on topic. I agree with her on the art point - though I don't think it's the atrocity she seems to, it's far from my favorite art style. But she had to throw in that nonsense about "agendas".

[snale.livejournal.com]

I guess the difference is, you respectfully say "it isn't my favorite style", while the commenter says "a kindergartener could do better". The second statement is insulting and judgemental, whereas your statement refers to your personal taste. It's a subtle difference, but a difference nonetheless. People who make judgemental statements (like the one above) are going to make them about other things as well, and be just as clueless that they're being offensive when they make them.
Essentially: "I don't like this art, therefore it's crappy" followed by "I don't agree with interracial marriage, therefore this book promotes an agenda" isn't an overly surprising turn of events.

[conuly]

On a complete and total tangent, I've always appreciated child-art. Not in the sense that I think it's all wonderful and creative, since much of it isn't, but in the since that... Little kids see the same world we do. They see that people aren't as big as houses, and that the sky goes and touches the ground, but they automatically draw symbolically - people are the same size as houses (or bigger) because people are more important than buildings. The sky is up, so the top of the page is blue, not the rest of it. Suns are happy, and they have big ol' grins on them. You ever see a frowning sun in a picture?

I love it.

[snale.livejournal.com]

Oh I definitely agree! :) I also love how they instinctively understand color symbolism. If something is happy, it's in bright colors, if something is scary it's in dark colors, etc. It's always a shame when they start editing themselves because they learn to believe that symbolic art doesn't "look right".

[snale.livejournal.com]

It's been my experience that people who make remarks like "my five year old could draw that" don't generally tend to follow up with intelligent, insightful comments.

[conuly]

She could've at least have stayed on topic. I agree with her on the art point - though I don't think it's the atrocity she seems to, it's far from my favorite art style. But she had to throw in that nonsense about "agendas".

[snale.livejournal.com]

I guess the difference is, you respectfully say "it isn't my favorite style", while the commenter says "a kindergartener could do better". The second statement is insulting and judgemental, whereas your statement refers to your personal taste. It's a subtle difference, but a difference nonetheless. People who make judgemental statements (like the one above) are going to make them about other things as well, and be just as clueless that they're being offensive when they make them.
Essentially: "I don't like this art, therefore it's crappy" followed by "I don't agree with interracial marriage, therefore this book promotes an agenda" isn't an overly surprising turn of events.

[conuly]

On a complete and total tangent, I've always appreciated child-art. Not in the sense that I think it's all wonderful and creative, since much of it isn't, but in the since that... Little kids see the same world we do. They see that people aren't as big as houses, and that the sky goes and touches the ground, but they automatically draw symbolically - people are the same size as houses (or bigger) because people are more important than buildings. The sky is up, so the top of the page is blue, not the rest of it. Suns are happy, and they have big ol' grins on them. You ever see a frowning sun in a picture?

I love it.

[snale.livejournal.com]

Oh I definitely agree! :) I also love how they instinctively understand color symbolism. If something is happy, it's in bright colors, if something is scary it's in dark colors, etc. It's always a shame when they start editing themselves because they learn to believe that symbolic art doesn't "look right".