My fives are for lifelong favorites, ones I'll re-read and probably buy. Fours are more ephemeral, but still great experiences. Threes were enjoyable and interesting, but flaws starting to overshadow bonuses. Twos I should have used my time some other way. Ones are enemy books.In retrospect now, everything stays the same except the 3-star rating. This one is more complicated. I find three stars often means:
- I was expecting to be disappointed and was ready to give it a 2 just because of a hackish topic or smarmy approach, but then there was a pleasant surprise in the reading. Yum's book on the 1st day of Kindergarten was like this for me.
- I was hoping for a really good experience, but ended up being disappointed. The Olivia princesses book was like this (although I find Lu's disagreement with my review interesting).
- Just what it says: I liked it but no more than that--not ready to use the shoulder shrug implied by 'it was okay' (or the 'I guess' those words imply).
With all this in mind, the 3 is the more complex of all the ratings, because if I didn't bring pre-judgment to books (which is impossible), some of the experiences as stand-alones might have gotten the book a 4 rating. But when 'what the book is by comparison to the larger tradition of picturebooks' makes me expect to be bored or roll my eyes, and then I am pleasantly surprised by the book I still do not feel right giving it a 4 star rating. A bad expectation turns a potentially 'amazing' rating into a 'really liked it' rating, a 4 into a 3, a 3 into a 2.
Side note: A 2 rating might be a good place to use the word 'nonplussed'--it left me perplexed and confused in a not good way. The question "How did this get published" usually comes to mind. Hest's The Reader was one of these.
An enemy book (1 star) is a book that I hold out as a paragon bad example. Rainbow Fish and Love You Forever are 1-star books. This is the irony of hate. These books will probably get more attention than 2-star or 3-star books, which are usually only worth the one visit. They demand attention and energy, which shows hate is not the opposite of love, but rather a close cousin to it. Only distance and willingness to ignore a book (2-star, some 3-star ratings) that really embodies the opposite of love.
Summary of ratings thus far:
131 picturebooks reviewed.
- 5 stars, 9% total but only 2% of this comes from this wave of reading--the other 7% are old favorites.
- 4 stars, 27% total with 20% coming from this wave of reading and 7% from previous reading.
- 3 stars, 49% with all coming from this wave of reading.
- 2 stars, 13% with all coming from this wave of reading.
- 1 star, less than 1%
A few books are on my to-read list which haven't actually been reviewed, but show up on the reviewed list anyway.
What do I think all this means? I am an optimist. The meaty 49% is me saying I liked it. I probably won't read those again, but I don't regret the time spent. However, this number is misleading. Lu Benke has been bringing in piles of books since before the Caldecotts and Newberys this year, and they're all well-reviewed books. So I've read 111 titles from the year's 'gold-star' list and I'm still seeing numbers like this--out of some of the year's best books I can say "I liked it" to half, "really liked it" to a fifth, and "amazing" to 2%.
This view of the stats tempers my optimism in two ways: 1. It makes me trust the reviews a little less. When there is truly something remarkable reviewers seem to take notice, and I'd rather not be plowing through random selections, but I wish there were something more [Lu Benke reminds me that correlating across review companies for multiple starred reviews is a good technique]; 2. It reminds me of one of Maurice Sendak's last interviews where he lamented the sorry state of the publishing industry. He believed he was part of something interesting in the 1960s and saw it deteriorate over the years. I find it's easy to say you love books, easier still to say you love picturebooks. It's not so easy to think about how much junk has to be put out to yield a few 5-star books every few years.
You're right. Your ratings don't correlate very much with the starred reviews. There does seem to be slightly more of your 4-stars in the higher half of the list, and more of your 2-stars in the lower half of the list. I haven't reviewed as many of this batch of books yet, but so far my reviews are also askew of the starred review rankings. (No surprise here. I rarely think the big award winners are the most deserving!)
ReplyDeleteBut there is something that keeps coming back and bugging me about the premise behind adults rating children's books. Are we rating them for how we think children will like them, how we like them, or how we as experts/teachers/parents/librarians think they should be according to some pre-established list of criteria? More likely, all three?
I think you said that you didn't think Monkey with a tool belt was all that spectacular till Pearl showed you otherwise. I had that same experience with Curious George. In my first few years as a children's librarian I thought it was mundane and cheaply illustrated. But when I shared the book with storytime kids and I could see the way they so immensely identified with George, what I thought of the book changed. Now that I can't apply that same measuring stick to my 2-star and 3-star ratings by sharing books with children on a regular basis (although I can still sometimes imagine how a book like Pete the Cat will go over with 2-year-olds), I am wondering about the validity of applying my ratings. Is including this consideration a concern for you?
I know that the kids at the library loved checking out Rainbow fish and all the iterations. Yet, I am pretty certain they would not have enjoyed it in a storytime as much as other books we felt were exciting to share (even if they didn't sparkle). So, am I saying I would recommend Rainbow fish over other books to children and parents because of the popularity with the kids? Aside from making sure we had some copies to meet the demand, no. Still, where is the happy medium--children will love it and it meets certain criteria.
Knowing you've got a great response to this...
ReplyDeleteI very rarely read with the thought of how other children would like books, because this always leads me to try to predict. Predicting others’ responses changes the experience of a book. Kids who guide me to books are still like reviewers, where I agree some of the time (Monkey with a tool belt) and disagree other times (Share Bears, Rainbow Fish). I also tend to look for professional criteria, but I don’t think my criteria are always textbook. For example, most children’s literature textbooks celebrate the ‘unity’ of a work, where I sometimes prefer a book that deconstructs or falls apart during the experience of reading. Also, after working with Stacy and knowing a few illustrators and authors I always think of what it takes to make a book, and think some about the influence of the publishing industry on these art forms. American publishers are generally cowards, and while there are some edgy Europeans some of their stuff is even worse.
Also, many of my ‘criteria’ come from my own experiences as a child. I hated being condescended to more than anything else. I didn’t mind experiencing darker themes, even though this had its limits for me. I hated “Roots,” “The Holocaust,” (on tv) and “Of Mice and Men” (in film and book). I was intrigued by Sendak’s darker and ‘uglier’ illlustrations and Edward Gorey’s too. I also remember reading a fairy tale collection when I was between 14-16 and realizing that the stories were more interesting to me at that age than they were when I was a child. So there’s part of me that doesn’t care whether a child would like it. If it’s a good story it’s a good story now. Stories with ‘lessons’ or morals in them are the worst examples of condescending storytelling. In church they always said that the parable was a superior way of teaching, because it helped people understand morality that would be difficult to grasp outside the story. I always thought that was stupid.
As far as ‘supplying’ kids, I’ve always been of a mind to supply them with everything, and not to be surprised when they like something I don’t care for, or don’t like something I love. Bela spent her own money on Share Bears as a toddler, and I cringed when she bought it and every time I had to read it. When she sees it now in my teaching pile, she always grabs it and remembers it fondly.
What I do love doing is sharing some of my most bizarre selections with school teachers, just because I hope it sends a good shock wave and demonstrates a remarkably skewed curve. Teachers are by far, more than any other group, swayed by what they think children will respond to in tidy, predictable ways. That’s unfortunate. It comes down to whether we believe the purpose of educating is to protect or to educate. Many teachers forego educating in favor of comfort and protection. There’s nothing wrong with some comfortable art, but I have no desire to spend energy and effort seeking out only comfort art.
Your thoughts encourage me to clarify my own. So much of what you say I energetically endorse: initially engaging in a book for what appeals to me, recognizing that predicting another reader’s assessment colors my own, strongly believing that good children’s literature is good literature whether read by an adult or a child, understanding that each individual child has his own tastes, upholding that all tastes are to be honored and celebrated, and—most definitely—believing the purpose of education is to educate not protect. Amen!!! But...
ReplyDeleteBlame it on the MAR program, but I have come to appreciate Rosenblatt’s thoughts on aesthetic and efferent approaches to reading. I love children’s literature for how much I enjoy reading it—pure and simple. But, as a children’s librarian I find the need to look again at children’s books for how they will play out in the arena where I have had influence. There is tremendous satisfaction for me in thinking of individual readers and realizing a book I have just read is a great match for that reader’s interests, needs, and skills. The second time I look at a book I do have a composite picture in my head of those readers I have encountered over the decades and I am assessing the book for how well it will be noticed, chosen, then enjoyed by the readers I know and serve. My shelves of personal books have books that I love AND the children I have known love and that has deepened my love of them. And my shelves have books children have not particularly liked but I like them and am glad t0 own them (They’re usually feminist viewpoints that are stronger than the overall appeal of the book. I celebrate the changing times through them! Or, folktales that aren’t particularly well written but are so authentic I have to have them.).
So, perhaps through this discussion, I am coming to realize I have a blast reading initially for myself. Recent discussions about the publishing industry, art, and postmodernism have me looking at new perspectives that have enriched my personal, aesthetic response. But ultimately my star “criteria” is based on the efferent—what my ever-changing experience tells me will work in a public library collection or storytime and be unbiased enough for every reader to discover books they want to read. Old habits die hard.
Last of all, all this talk about Rainbow Fish has jinxed me! Monday at the preschool where I observe, they asked me to read to a small group of children and guess which tattered, well-loved book they brought over for me to read? It was all about being able to touch the shiny scales. On a more enticing note, your dark side might enjoy Mem Fox’s Guess What? if you haven’t already encountered it. Suffice it to say it is one of those picture books that was roundly challenged!