WELCOME

WELCOME! For the last 17 years, about once a month, usually on a Thursday evening, a group of writers, illustrators, teachers and librarians meets in the Los Feliz area of Los Angeles to discuss children's books. Usually we talk about one picture book and one middle grade or YA novel. After the meeting, Sandy Schuckett, a retired LAUSD librarian, summarizes our discussion. Here are her reports of our thoughts about the books we have read. We'd love to have your comments too!
Thanks to Nancy Hayashi for our wonderful title art! NOTE: We are changing to a new schedule. Our meetings will now be quarterly and during the afternoon. Our group has been meeting since 2007. It was organized under the auspices of the Children's Literature Council of Southern California (CLCSC).

Thursday, May 7, 2009

Twilight by Stephenie Meyer and Twenty-one Elephants and Still Standing by April Jones Prince

Twilight by Stephenie Meyer
Twenty-one Elephants and Still Standing by April Jones Prince

We had interesting discussions of our two books on Thursday, and delicious food provided by everyone!!
We pretty much all agreed that the picture book, although very beautiful left a bit to be desired in the language area -- it tried to be poetic -- but wasn't....and some questioned that it would be well-received by elementary-aged kids. We thought the art was beautiful, but not really kid-like, and that there was too much kids needed to know before they could truly enjoy it.
As for Twilight -- One of our members, Michelle, who often says, "Gee - I wish I'd written that line," said of Twilight, "There wasn't a single line in the book that I wish I'd written!" We agreed that it was relatively formulaic, very pure and 'clean' at the beginning, and then as it progressed it seemed to be less and less about a high school kid. We understood why 11-year-old girls would go ga-ga over this series.....not so sure about adults.......oh, well.