06.23.10
Posted in Complaining, Random at 7:39 am by Janet
My dog is out of town this week, visiting his doting grandparents, so I have time for one more blog entry. This one is a desperate plea to writers, publishers, and editors: please, for God’s sake, stop publishing series books that don’t stand alone. A case in point: I just read The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place: The Mysterious Howling by Maryrose Wood. This book, about a young governess caring for children who have been raised by wolves, has been getting great reviews, and I thoroughly enjoyed the time I spent reading it. But when it was over, I felt cheated. Empty. Fooled. Why? Practically nothing gets resolved. We don’t know where the children came from. We don’t know who their parents are. We don’t know who released the squirrel in the party. We don’t know what Lord Frederick is up to. We don’t know what Old Timothy’s deal is. At this point, we have way more questions than answers. Where’s the payoff? This book is one long exposition. Exposition is appropriate for the first book in a series; however, you need some resolution mixed in with all that exposition. I feel like I’m being forced into reading the next books.
Take a great series like Harry Potter. Every book has its own plot and set of challenges, and most of those issues get resolved by the end of the book. But a few niggling questions remain, and the series plot arch continues. You’re left pining for the next book. A good series should make you want to read the next book, not make you feel duped.
I fear this is a growing phenomenon. I read The Prophecy of the Sisters by Michelle Zink, and was left with the same empty feeling–very little was resolved. I’m so annoyed that now I refuse to read the rest of the series. What’s going on here? Did the author mean this to be a single book, and then the publisher decided to extend that single book into a series? Couldn’t the author just write a second book? Series are great, but not every book needs to be part of one. Sometimes it’s better to tie up all the loose ends in one fell swoop.
Please, writers and editors, throw us readers a bone and publish more books that are self-contained.
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06.22.10
Posted in Favorite Books, Geography at 7:24 am by Janet
Even though I no longer have a crush on John Green, I read Will Grayson, Will Grayson as soon as I could get my hands on it. I loved it. I was particularly excited that the book is set in the Chicago area and that the Will Grayson parts of the story are set in my town, Evanston.
In library school and on various listservs, we spend a lot of time talking about the importance of authenticity in multicultural literature for children. What I hear over and over is that it is important to be sure you’re depicting a people from a particular culture or place fairly and accurately. But now I wonder…do you have to represent a town accurately? Does geographical authenticity matter?
Does Evanston’s high school really have lots of murals of its mascot? Does Jane’s house at 1712 Wesley exist and does it really have a porch? Am I being too obsessive? I mean, I live here and I don’t know. Then again, I’m not really the audience the author had in mind, given that I’m, you know, not a teenager. (I do know, however, that Will and Tiny and Jane drove home from the Hideout way quicker than is actually possible, at least when I’m driving. )
I’m still undecided (maybe you people out there can help me decide), but here’s how I’m leaning on this question. In this case, geographical authenticity matters when it shapes the story. It matters that Will Grayson and Tiny live in Evanston because it’s far away from will grayson, who I think is supposed to live over in the southwest suburb of Naperville. It also matters matters because Tiny and Will Grayson are Evanston rich kids, and will grayson is not a rich kid (although I’ve heard there are plenty of rich kids in Naperville). These are things that might pull the characters apart, but various events and strong feelings conspire to bring them together. On the other hand, it doesn’t matter because a story can be, well, just a story. The murals on the wall at ETHS don’t push the story forward, nor do they hold it back. Sometimes fiction is fiction, in that it’s made up, but it sure is neat when the details correspond with reality.
I’m hoping to give WGWG to a recent ETHS grad, and we’re also going to do a book discussion at my library (one suburb north) on it later this summer. Perhaps some of those teens can tell me if it is authentic, and whether or not it matters to them. I’ll get back to you on that.
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06.11.10
Posted in Favorite Books, Geography at 8:41 pm by Janet
Ooh, look what the cat dragged into the Tarts Wardrobe! It’s me, and tarts, I have not forgotten about you. I have just been very busy. Among other things, I’ve been on the road. Last month Lucianonymous and I drove down to New Orleans. New Orleans is like no other place I’ve been. Is it France? Is it the Caribbean? Is it the USA? All of the above? We mostly stayed around the French Quarter, but we did take a detour when we got lost coming back from Tulane. Business was booming in the French Quarter, but you could definitely still see the effects of Katrina–bad roads, boarded up houses. I narrowly avoided having a voodoo hex put on me when I skipped out of a mini lecture at the Voodoo Spiritual Temple to rescue L from standing interminably on the sidewalk. We wandered around a cemetery (the one in Easy Rider). We took a drive through the Garden District. The whole place was fascinating to me.
What am I getting at? After I got back I had to reread Ruined by Paula Morris. I read this book this winter, and it had me glued to the couch. The same thing happened the second time around, except that this time I had actually seen some of the places mentioned in the book and the story seemed so much more vivid. Anyhow, it’s about a New York teen named Rebecca who’s suddenly shipped off to New Orleans to live with an old family friend. An outsider in her very stodgy and traditional private school, Rebecca has to look elsewhere to find friends. She meets Lisette in the cemetery across the street from her house. Turns out Lisette is a ghost. Lisette introduces Rebecca to New Orleans’s history, with its complicated race relations and class structure. Rebecca soon finds out that New Orleans’s history is, well, not history at all. Lisette is connected to an old voodoo curse on the family of Rebecca’s snootiest schoolmate, and Rebecca herself may have a part to play in the curse. There’s a cute boy and a dramatic ending and lots of Mardi Gras beads. Morris does a does a great job of creating a sense of place and giving an overview of the history and culture of New Orleans. Plus it’s a riveting story.
So…if I can’t make it back for Mardi Gras, I’ll just read Ruined. You should read it, too.
Tomb of voodoo queen Marie Laveau
Commander's Palace, mentioned in the book
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