Book Review Rule Number One

On his blog, Neil Gaiman responds to a review in the Times, in which the reviewer David Itzkoff, who is reviewing two books for young adults (including one of Gaiman's), says:

I sometimes wonder how any self-respecting author of speculative fiction can find fulfillment in writing novels for young readers. I suppose J. K. Rowling could give me 1.12 billion reasons in favor of it: get your formula just right and you can enjoy worldwide sales, film and television options, vibrating-toy-broom licensing fees, Chinese-language bootlegs of your work, a kind of limited immortality (L. Frank Baum who?) and — finally — genuine grown-up readers. But where’s the artistic satisfaction? Where’s the dignity?

Gaiman says:

I think that rule number one for book reviewers should probably be Don't Spend The First Paragraph Slagging Off The Genre. Just don't. Don't start a review of romance books by saying that all romance books are rubbish but these are good (or just as bad as the rest). Don't start a review of SF by saying that you hate all off-planet tales or things set in the future and you don't like way SF writers do characters. Don't start a review of a University Adultery novel by explaining that mostly books about English professors having panicky academic sex bore you to tears but. Just don't. Any more than a restaurant reviewer would spend a paragraph explaining that she didn't normally like or eat -- or understand why other people would like or eat -- Chinese food, or French, or barbeque. It just makes people think you're not a very good reviewer.

I first saw Itzkoff's strangely unprofessional review quoted on Gwenda's blog last week. Gwenda,  a writer of YA fiction, really let him have it and so did many of the commenters on her post.  I'm so glad they did. Itzkoff's disrespect made me think sadly of Margaret Wise Brown, E. Nesbit, and Frances Hodgson Burnett. I recently read biographies of these three women, all of whom wrote amazing books for children that turned out to be classics. I was startled to learn that all of them went to their graves wishing they'd been as successful as writers of works for adults.  And in every case it seemed that longing had mostly to do with other people's perceptions of writing for children as easy and unimportant work. Nothing I've read since has made as profound an impact on me as those books I read and enjoyed as a child and I'm sure I'm not the only reader who feels that way. What would be more satisfying to a writer than to know that?

Come to think of it, Itzkoff's brand of disdain and dismissal is very familiar -- it's part of the unfortunate and prevailing attitude to anyone whose work  has to do with children, actually, whether they're writers, teachers, daycare workers, or parents. It's not serious, it's not difficult, and it's not important. When in fact, nothing could be further from the truth.

Comments

[Working Dad]

Wow, I can't believe a reviewer would write those paragraphs anywhere in the review. It is both unprofessional and smells of envy. I couldn't agree more about the power and impact of great children's books.

[Susan T.]

Amen. Well said, Stephany.

[Pete]

Writers are partly to blame for this attitude, as well. I remember reading that A.A. Milne generally disdained his Pooh stories, wishing instead that the world would honor him for his "adult" dramas. Why he wasn't satisfied with having created some of the most enduring characters in the history of Western literature, I just can't figure out.

[Pam]

I think you nailed it in the last paragraph there, actually. Where does the disdain for children and all related things come from, I wonder?

[Aishwarya]

I read that article recently and rolled my eyes a lot. I wonder how Mieville (who is a brilliant writer, and has written enough about children's books he loves) feels about that review?