Month: March 2011

  • P.D. James’ Advice for Book Reviewers

    from Time to Be in Earnest

    1.  Always read the whole of the book before you write your review.

    2. Don’t undertake to review a book
    if it is written in a genre you particularly dislike.

    3. Review the book the author has written,
    not the one you think he/she should have written.

    4. If you have prejudices…
    face them frankly and, if appropriate, acknowledge them.

    5. Be scathingly witty if you must and can,
    but never be deliberately cruel [...]

    6. If you absolutely hate the book
    and have nothing either interesting or positive to say, why review it?

    7. If you are given a book to review by a close friend
    and you strongly dislike it, don’t review it.
    We none of us like hurting our friends
    and the temptation to be over-kind is too strong.

    8. Resist the temptation to use a review to pay back old scores
    or to vent your dislike of the author’s sex, class, politics,
    religion or lifestyle. Try to believe that it is possible
    for people of whom you disapprove to write a good book.
     

    ::     ::     ::

    What would you add to this list?

    I appreciate personal interactions with the book.
    I like to get to know reviewers, especially bloggers.

  • Hans Brinker – A Sterling Story

    Hans Brinker is a sterling story. 

    Like a meal at a four-star restaurant it is delicious, beautiful and nourishing.  But a taste for delicious, beautiful and nourishing must be cultivated.  I would not serve Mary Mapes Dodge’s classic  Hans Brinker to a child who has been fed a steady diet of literary Happy Meals.  But a boy or girl who has tasted Laura Ingalls Wilder, Robert Louis Stevenson, Louisa May Alcott or Ralph Moody would eat this story up.

    The setting, the time period and cultural references are foreign, and thus require some work to read.  Published in 1865, the story is set in the Netherlands.  Imagine weather so cold that the canals froze.  What would American families do?  Stay inside and watch TV.  In nineteenth century Holland every able bodied person laced on his skates, bundled up and had fun skating! 

    There are benefits to reading it slowly, using tools such as Google Earth, search engines and maps to explore areas of interest.  Rabbit trails abound!

    • Were the telescope and microscope invented by the Dutch Jacob Metius and Sacharias Janssen or by the English Roger Bacon? 
    • A group of boys skate to Leiden and The Hague: look it up!
    • Why did the art of curing and pickling herrings revolutionize the economy of Holland?

    Any reader with a whiff of curiosity could learn a fair bit about Holland by reading Hans Brinker alone, in concert with other reference tools, or alongside other books like The Wheel on the School.  References to art abound; use Hans Brinker as a springboard for studying Dutch artists.  

    Some favorite quotes:

    Never had the sunset appeared more beautiful to Peter than when he saw it exchanging farewell glances with the windows and shining roofs of the city before him.

    It is no sin to love beautiful things.

    A tamed bird is a sad bird, say what you will.

    Although the sermon was spoken slowly, Ben [English boy] could understand little of what was said; but when the hymn came, he joined in with all his heart. A thousand voices lifted in love and praise offered a grander language than he could readily comprehend.


    Who will be the fastest skater in the race and win the Silver Skates?  Read Hans Brinker to find out!

  • Cinderella by Millais

     


    Cinderella, John Everett Millais, 1881

    How does she correspond with your imagination?