SOME WRITER! by Melissa Sweet and I DISSENT by Debbie Levy

We read two biographies for our last meeting, and we liked them both. We discussed Some Writer! by Melissa Sweet first. We all liked it, but we had varying opinions on the format and layout, where Sweet combined original art, photos, facsimiles of E.B.White's works, artifacts, and other design elements. Some people loved this and felt that the format was almost like a scrapbook, and was a perfect complement to the text. Others felt it was confusing and distracting. One reader thought it was almost like a website, and that maybe this could entice young readers who might be intimidated by pages containing only text. One reader, a longtime E.B.White fan who had read everything he had ever written, felt that the writing in this book, although accessible and well done, wasn't eloquent enough in discussing this esteemed subject. We liked most of the 'back matter' of the book, which included statements from the author and from White's granddaughter, plus a timeline, notes, and bibliographies, but we felt that all of that was probably more interesting to adults than it would be to kids. We felt that young readers would probably not pick this book on their own, but that if they were fans of Stuart Little or Charlotte's Web, they might be interested in knowing more about the author of these classics.

As for the picture biography, I Dissent by Debbie Levy, we all liked it. Some readers were put off by the many examples of dissent, disagreement, etc., shown in huge letters in the illustrations, which they felt presented a view that portrayed Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg as always being negative. Others didn't mind that aspect of the art, but didn't love the way Ginsburg was visually portrayed as a child and a young woman -- sort of cartoonish, and not very pretty -- although photos of her showed that she was in fact quite attractive. We all liked how the story of her life showed the incidents and social issues that helped to shape her thinking and made her confident that a young woman could become anything she wanted to, and could fight for justice. We thought that the writing, although not exceptional, was adequately accessible for young readers, and we hoped the book would be inspiring for young girls and could show boys that "girls CAN do anything!"

Evil Librarian by Michelle Knudsen and The Right Word: Roget and His Thesaurus by Jen Bryant

We had a delicious holiday dinner at our December meeting -- good dishes provided by all of the attendees. Big YUMS all around!

We discussed Evil Librarian by Michelle Knudsen first. Even though it won the SCBWI 2015 Sid Fleischman Award for Humor, each and every one of us kept asking, "...but what was actually funny in this book?" We'd love to have an answer from -- someone. Needless to say, we didn't love the book. We mainly felt that the story was very contrived, and that the main characters, Cyn and Ryan, were pretty much stick figures -- sort of like those that Annie might draw. We felt that we knew very little about them or their inner feelings, and it was just all very flat. Some folks said they got tired of Cyn's 'gaga over Ryan' narrative. We did actually feel that the portrayal of Annie may have been the strongest in the book. A couple of people said that they thought the descriptions of the supernatural occurrences were well written, and a strength of the book -- if the book had any strengths at all. Several people said that they couldn't even finish it. We also discussed why the author chose to have a school librarian (an endangered species!) be the 'bad guy'. Perhaps because this author also wrote Library Lion?....or -- was it purely an editor/publisher's marketing decision? If anyone who reads this blog can give some examples of humor in this book, we'd love to know!

As for our picture book, The Right Word: Roget and his Thesaurus, everyone liked it a lot; some of us loved it. We had quite a discussion about the illustrations (by Melissa Sweet), with some folks stating that the illustrations completely overpowered the text because of their details and power, while others felt that the text was very strong and stood up on its own as it described Roget's obsession with words and organizing them throughout his life. We liked the 'end matter,' and were amazed to learn of all of the other things Roget accomplished in his life. We agreed that it would be a great read-aloud in a school setting, to introduce students to the Thesaurus. We also felt that it would be a perfect companion to Jeri Chase Farris' Noah and his Words, which we discussed in February 2013 and unanimously loved. We all agreed that it was a neat book, and a great addition to the children's literature field. (Note: No Thesauri were killed in the writing of this re-cap!)