They really *needed* another opinion...?
Oct. 18th, 2007 03:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ellenkushnerSo not one but two reviews of my new book were published in the Sept/Oct 2007 issue of the AJL (Association of Jewish Libraries) Newsletter:
Kushner, Ellen. The Golden Dreydl. Illus. by Ilene Winn-Lederer.
Watertown, MA: Charlesbridge, 2007. 126pp. $15.95. ISBN: 978-58089-135-6.
DELIGHTFUL REVIEW, ending with:
"...Kushner is known for her fantasy novels, and her foray into the seldom-explored area of Jewish fantasy for young readers will appeal on many levels. Jewish customs and folklore, interesting characters, and silly riddles combine for an entertaining and enchanting read. Highly recommended for middle-grade readers in all libraries."
-- Kathe Pinchuck, Congregation Beth Sholom, Teaneck, NJ
O ecstasy! But followed by this one:
Another Opinion:
"Sara is a preadolescent girl who feels that nobody understands her. Because she is Jewish, she doesn’t get to join in all the fun of Christmas, and her parents are unsympathetic to this problem. Her big brother, Seth, teases her, and at her aunt’s annual Chanukah party, he joins with their cousins in making a dreydl game into a big fight. When the mysterious Tante Miriam arrives, she gives all the kids great gifts—except for Sara, who gets a golden dreydl. After a another fight breaks out with Seth, the dreydl flies out of Sara’s hands and breaks her aunt’s brand new TV. Until this point, the book seems like a run-of-the-mill story about a self-centered, insecure pre-teenager. But during the night, the dreydl magically becomes a girl, and Sara is transported with her into an alternative universe that is peopled with demons, King Solomon, a Fool, and the Tree of Life. And it is here that this adaptation of the Nutcracker story really starts to fall apart. Good fantasy creates worlds and characters that are believable. This book does not. Some characters, such as Miriam and King Solomon, are from the Bible; others, such as the Fool and the demons, have been invented only to further the disjointed and unsatisfying storyline. The golden dreydl, we learn, needs to return with its magical letters to the Tree of Life, before all “light and music, knowledge and wisdom” cease to exist. She has been captured by the demons, however, and must be rescued. If readers knew what the Tree of Life was, this might be compelling, but since it is not adequately explained, even the main character doesn’t seem all that interested. Winn-Lederer’s illustrations are intricate and weird, and their uniqueness is the only bright light here. The back flap says that the author has narrated The Golden Dreydl with the Shirim Klezmer Orchestra in their adaptation of Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker Suite, and perhaps in that venue the story works. It falls short, however, as a novel for middle readers. Grade level: 3–5."
Nancy A---, Temple Emanu-El, Dallas, TX
Discussion Questions:
• Why, why, whyyyyyyyyy?
• Is what the world really needs (in the words of one friend) "another book about a self-centered teenager"?
• Do some people just not get fantasy?
• Are Texans less enlightened than Greater New Yorkers (especially people from Teaneck)?
• If you really loved me (and you're a librarian or Jewish educator), would you be writing an indignant post or enthusiastic review somewhere where your colleagues would read it?
Obviously, if you actually read the book and don't like it, that's cool - I don't think everyone needs to love everything I write! The things this woman picked on just struck me as odd. You?
Kushner, Ellen. The Golden Dreydl. Illus. by Ilene Winn-Lederer.
Watertown, MA: Charlesbridge, 2007. 126pp. $15.95. ISBN: 978-58089-135-6.
DELIGHTFUL REVIEW, ending with:
"...Kushner is known for her fantasy novels, and her foray into the seldom-explored area of Jewish fantasy for young readers will appeal on many levels. Jewish customs and folklore, interesting characters, and silly riddles combine for an entertaining and enchanting read. Highly recommended for middle-grade readers in all libraries."
-- Kathe Pinchuck, Congregation Beth Sholom, Teaneck, NJ
O ecstasy! But followed by this one:
Another Opinion:
"Sara is a preadolescent girl who feels that nobody understands her. Because she is Jewish, she doesn’t get to join in all the fun of Christmas, and her parents are unsympathetic to this problem. Her big brother, Seth, teases her, and at her aunt’s annual Chanukah party, he joins with their cousins in making a dreydl game into a big fight. When the mysterious Tante Miriam arrives, she gives all the kids great gifts—except for Sara, who gets a golden dreydl. After a another fight breaks out with Seth, the dreydl flies out of Sara’s hands and breaks her aunt’s brand new TV. Until this point, the book seems like a run-of-the-mill story about a self-centered, insecure pre-teenager. But during the night, the dreydl magically becomes a girl, and Sara is transported with her into an alternative universe that is peopled with demons, King Solomon, a Fool, and the Tree of Life. And it is here that this adaptation of the Nutcracker story really starts to fall apart. Good fantasy creates worlds and characters that are believable. This book does not. Some characters, such as Miriam and King Solomon, are from the Bible; others, such as the Fool and the demons, have been invented only to further the disjointed and unsatisfying storyline. The golden dreydl, we learn, needs to return with its magical letters to the Tree of Life, before all “light and music, knowledge and wisdom” cease to exist. She has been captured by the demons, however, and must be rescued. If readers knew what the Tree of Life was, this might be compelling, but since it is not adequately explained, even the main character doesn’t seem all that interested. Winn-Lederer’s illustrations are intricate and weird, and their uniqueness is the only bright light here. The back flap says that the author has narrated The Golden Dreydl with the Shirim Klezmer Orchestra in their adaptation of Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker Suite, and perhaps in that venue the story works. It falls short, however, as a novel for middle readers. Grade level: 3–5."
Nancy A---, Temple Emanu-El, Dallas, TX
Discussion Questions:
• Why, why, whyyyyyyyyy?
• Is what the world really needs (in the words of one friend) "another book about a self-centered teenager"?
• Do some people just not get fantasy?
• Are Texans less enlightened than Greater New Yorkers (especially people from Teaneck)?
• If you really loved me (and you're a librarian or Jewish educator), would you be writing an indignant post or enthusiastic review somewhere where your colleagues would read it?
Obviously, if you actually read the book and don't like it, that's cool - I don't think everyone needs to love everything I write! The things this woman picked on just struck me as odd. You?
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2007-10-18 07:29 pm (UTC)And ok, we haven't read the book, but my kids don't have any problem with either the fantasy elements OR the parallels to the Nutcracker, both of which they get in general, although I think that even if they didn't they'd be likely to gloss over anything confusing without a blink. And they aren't even Jewish. (Well, not *very* Jewish, their Jewish grandfather having died some ten years before either of them were born.)
And gosh, it never occured to any of us that it was about a teenager, self-centred or otherwise... possibly because the kids started listening to it when they were 5 and 8.
---------------------
Oh... and btw... if the review has got the name spelled correctly, can I just tell you how PSYCHED we all are to see that she is actually Sara without an H!
no subject
Date: 2007-10-19 02:43 am (UTC)I'm glad the kids like the CD! I don't intend for any kid who reads it (or listens to the album) to need to be Jewish at all - a story is a story, and I certainly grew up reading C. S. Lewis - and Anansi stories - & singing Handel's "Messiah" . . . It galls me a little that Jewish art tends to get ghettoized, still, as though it's special pleading for a group with special needs or something. But then I consider the humble Bagel, which I have found for sale all over - including a roadside cafe on an Indian Reservation in Washington . . . so I guess there's hope.
And, yes, it's SARA! I forget when or why I decided that, but delighted to know your Sara is glad of it.
The reviewer does refer to her as "preadolescent," which is right - she's about 11 in my brain. I dont' think my Sara is much more self-centered than any other kid her age - she's just crabby about the holiday. What I get from the review is that the reviewer thought it was coded to be one kind of book (Pre-teen Problem Novel) and then when it did a switcheroo on her, she balked. It is ever the problem with Interstitial art. No, honestly: issues like this are at the heart of why we founded the IAF. People want their expectations met, their genres unblurred, and they get cranky when they're not. Wherever they live, I hope we can enlighten them.
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Date: 2007-10-18 07:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-18 08:04 pm (UTC)If I was going to do some reviewomancy...it's a pretty grounded-in-reasons reply (goes into character, structure, amount of background info provided), which makes me think that it's really just not what that reader was looking for, and maybe there were expectations of what kind of book it was going to be on their part and when it wasn't that book they went "blaah!"
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From:no subject
Date: 2007-10-18 07:46 pm (UTC)Meanhwile:
1) Column inches
2) Depends on who you're trying to reach.
3) See 2)
4) See 2)
Ya' gotta know your audience, but the reviewers don't have to know your audience.
no subject
Date: 2007-10-19 02:11 am (UTC)(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2007-10-18 07:50 pm (UTC)To answer your question "Why?", though:
Because different people like different things, and since you were known as a fantasy writer before the book it makes you easier to dismiss. It shouldn't, but it does. *I* can see that you're playing with all sorts of happy myths that are very common, just from the reviews. Sadly, if your reader doesn't know -- and isn't willing to imagine -- what a Tree of Life is, then that reader is pretty much lost to you.
no subject
Date: 2007-10-19 02:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-18 08:02 pm (UTC)(1a) Or, if you must, take them with several large pinches of salt. Nobody knows anything. And do you actually care what one particular person thinks (unless she's, I don't know, your mother, or someone whose opinion you already know and value)? Do you value their opinion more than the people who bought it, published it, read it, loved it, reviewed it positively...
(2) Yes, some people just don't 'get' fantasy. Just as some people don't 'get' sci fi. Or westerns. Or porn!
(3) See rule one!
no subject
Date: 2007-10-19 02:22 am (UTC)Can't See the Tree in the Forest of Trees
Date: 2007-10-18 08:02 pm (UTC)Re: Can't See the Tree in the Forest of Trees
Date: 2007-10-19 02:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-18 08:21 pm (UTC)I have to say, "another opinion" sounds biased from the first: "Because she is Jewish, she doesn’t get to join in all the fun of Christmas..." The tone trivializes the protagonist's feelings. Sounds to me as though the reviewer is being deliberately obtuse and dismissive.
I hope that discerning readers will recognize this and heed the first review, rather than the second. Those who know your work certainly ought to!
The Whole First Review
Date: 2007-10-19 02:26 am (UTC)Sara is not looking forward to the family Hanukkah party or to playing
dreydl with her brother Seth and their cousins. But when eccentric
Tante Miriam gives her a golden dreydl, the adventures begin. Sara
goes through a broken television screen and follows the dreydl to a
world of interesting characters, where she helps save the enchanted
dreydl, which is really the daughter of King Solomon and the Queen of
Sheba. After contending with demons and solving riddles, Sara returns
to her family in time for breakfast. Kushner is known for her fantasy
novels, and her foray into the seldom-explored area of Jewish fantasy
for young readers will appeal on many levels. Jewish customs and
folklore, interesting characters, and silly riddles combine for an
entertaining and enchanting read. Highly recommended for middle-grade
readers in all libraries.
Kathe Pinchuck, Congregation Beth Sholom, Teaneck, NJ
* * *
Is Hampton, VA, near Virginia Beach? I'm going to be doing a whole DREYDL performance there on Dec. 5:
http://www.sff.net/people/kushnerSherman/Kushner/upcoming.html
no subject
Date: 2007-10-18 08:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-19 02:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-18 08:50 pm (UTC)Don't give up on Texas!
no subject
Date: 2007-10-19 02:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-18 08:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-19 02:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-18 09:01 pm (UTC)Also, I don't think the reviewer is getting the point at all in any case.
no subject
Date: 2007-10-18 09:06 pm (UTC)standard character in Jewish folklore?
And what the heck's wrong with an "alternative
Nutcracker"?
Sounds pretty cranky to me!
no subject
Date: 2007-10-18 09:10 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2007-10-18 10:03 pm (UTC)Children? Hey, I have those!
Date: 2007-10-18 10:49 pm (UTC)Did the second reviewer think you invented the Tree of Life, too? What a busy woman you've been!
Re: Children? Hey, I have those!
Date: 2007-10-19 02:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-18 10:57 pm (UTC)I really hate the stereotype that all of us in Texas are less enlightened than everyone else. Yes, there are some bigots and jerks and illiterate people. But there are bigots, jerks, and illiterate people in all fifty states (and Puerto Rico).
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Date: 2007-10-19 02:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-18 11:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-19 05:49 am (UTC)That Impudent Little Worm!! *hisses, snarls* WHO is that person, I'mma go Candlestick on her ass!! *RAWR*
HOW can she praise the illustrations so highly and then say that the story would work best on audio?!?! Doesn't she realize she's contradicting herself, how silly she sounds?! *GRRRR*
"CREATES" worlds and characters?! All the things, people and places she listed used to/still exist in our world, and she calls it not-effing-believable?! Gee, I'd LOVE to see her review a historical book!! ("This author writes that Lewis and Clark were led across the Louisiana Purchases by Sacagawea, and that's where this story really starts to fall apart...the characters just weren't believable, etc.") *ARRRRR*
She didn't even have the decency to use your *name*!!! Geeee, she *really* worked hard on this review! Any crock reviewer can slap some derogatory adjectives on a piece of writing, but she doesn't list ONE thing she liked!! I'll bet they MADE her do this article, and she'd decided before she even read it that she wasn't going to like it!! *HISSSSS*
I've got a lighter and a bottle of body spray! Come, Fezzik: there will be BLOOD TONIGHT!!! *hops a bus to Texas*
(You know, if you'd just let Richard go and do what he does best, it would be *so* much more bloody and satisfying...*cackles*)
no subject
Date: 2007-10-19 02:05 pm (UTC)Thank you, my dear. Tea, pats & snuggles were exactly what I was looking for.
And your analysis of why the reviewer missed the boat is, as usual, dead on. Are you *sure* your career isn't actually being managed by Alien Guidance Counselors from the Planet Pluto who just don't have the smarts to realize that you were born to do creative text analysis and should be Guidanced right into graduate school in English?
I think the reviewer actually *was* trying to say something nice by suggesting it might work better in audio. (Sigh) Oh, well! Not everything is right for everyone.... I just wish she had reserved her opinions for the family dinner table, instead of a nationally-published journal . . . .
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