Eureka! Short reviews alleviate workload, prevent procrastination.
November 13th, 2006 by eishaHey, remember when Wired asked all those authors to come up with six-word stories? (I heard about it through Fuse #8.) Well, the other day I stumbled across a blog called Fussy, totally by accident. And this blog’s author does five-word book reviews. A-ha, I thought. Brilliant! That is something I can do, even with another paper due. And it’s a great way to tell you speedy-quick about some of the new picture books I just got in at work last week. But, this being 7ITBB, I have to give it a Seven-Impossible-style twist. So, I bring you (drumroll, please):
The Seven Word Book Review! ™
Black? White! Day? Night! by Laura Vaccaro Seeger.
Giant lift-the-flap* design makes familiar concept cool.
* Compound words joined with hyphens still only count as one word. ‘Cause I said so.
Lucia and the Light by Phyllis Root, illustrated by Mary GrandPre.
Lavish, sorta-Nordic heroine quest , with goofy trolls.
Do Not Open This Book! by Michaela Muntean, illustrated by Pascal Lemaitre.
Remember Grover’s Monster book? It’s like that.
Yoon and the Christmas Mitten by Helen Recorvits, illustrated by Gabi Swiatkowska.
This is why schools don’t do Christmas.
Welcome, Precious by Nikki Grimes, illustrated by Bryan Collier.
Precious, indeed! Illustrations help almost-saccharine text.
See? It works! That would have taken me 3 days with my usual novella-length reviews. And it’s a fun challenge, kinda like writing haiku. Although I’m not sure it came across that I did actually like all of these books… What do you think? Will it catch on? Should I send in the patent application now?
I like. Maybe I’ll try next, since I have a huuuge stack of picture books I wanna talk about — with my Cybils reading and all. It’s starting to get overwhelming how many picture books I wanna blog about, but they just keep piling up.
I saw the new Laura Vaccaro Seeger yesterday in a bookstore, and I loved it. She always impresses. Thanks for mentioning it. And I really wanna read all those others now.
by jules November 13th, 2006 at 2:00 pmHmmmm. 2, 3 and 5 worked really well. With 1 and 4 I had questions. “What familiar concept?” and “What do you mean this is why schools don’t do Christmas?”
They’re fun reviews though. Thanks!
by Nancy November 13th, 2006 at 3:29 pmyou make a good point, Nancy. if you could see the cover of “Black? White!…” closer, you’d see that it says “A Book of Opposites.” and i guess i assumed that many would have heard about Yoon, since it’s getting a bit of controversial buzz – it’s about a Korean-American girl who convinces her family to celebrate Christmas because she hears about it at school. it is actually a sweet and funny story, with lovely illustrations, but some think the implication that to assimilate into American culture you have to celebrate Christmas is a little weird.
by eisha November 13th, 2006 at 6:07 pmD’oh-eth!! Eisha, Nancy left a comment here yesterday that said something along the lines of ‘oh! I get it now’ and that she loves the cover of the Yoon book and wants to read it now. I just had to delete a nonsense comment from this post, and I accidentally deleted Nancy’s. I’m sorry, dudes!!
by jules November 15th, 2006 at 11:23 am