Newberry Good - Spiderwick Not-So-Good

This is a spoiler for the book if you have seen the movie. On the other hand, if you went to see the movie you have no business crying, “Spoiler” in the first place!

My daughter had not read the last two books in the The Spiderwick Chronicles when I took her to see the movie. I repeatedly reminded her that the movie and the book are never quite the same and often the ending is radically changed. Well, the ending in the movie was so anti-climatic that I thought, “God, I hope they end the book better than this!” A lesson in managing expectations: the ending of the book was exactly the same EXCEPT worse. In the movie the situation is set up so there is some sort of expectation and plausibility. In the book, no such thing! A hand shoots out and, chomp, it’s over. No foreshadowing. No heroism. No meaning.

On related note, what’s up with angry young boys? Harry Potter spends a few thousand pages inexplicably (or barely explicably, if you prefer) angry. Whenever the plot needs to be driven, Harry gets mad. His character development ends up stunted irrevocably.

Now Jared Grace spends at least part of every book angry. In his case, the anger is placed in a more familiar context (children of divorce) and you get a sense that it is an issue that would benefit from some therapy (not that it ever comes to that, the school expels him for carrying a swiss army knife without getting a therapist involved - as if!). Even so, this is beginning to feel like a cop-out for authors of children’s books – just make the protagonist angry and you don’t have to be bothered with complex character development.

That said, my daughter’s current book is called Rules by Cynthia Lord and it is quite extraordinary. It features a 12 year old girl dealing with the autism of her 8 year old brother juxtaposed against her encounters with a wheelchair-bound boy who must communicate via a set of cards with words written on them. This has genuine young anger, frustration, uncertainty and self-discovery. As long as nothing stupid happens in the last third of the book, it looks like a great read and an excellent book to read with my child. I am going to start looking for the Newberry label on all her books.

A Children's Book?

I have read that the Harry Potter books should only be judged according to the standards of its young audience. Aside from the obvious corollary to this - that adults should be prohibited from reading the books - there are further flaws in the argument.

First, assuming that a twelve year old does not care about poor plotting, absent character development and self-contradictory settings is patronizing and, I believe, a complete dodge. Megan McArdle expresses it better than I do:

"But the best children's fantasy does something else: it gives one the illusion that
the magical world is as consistent and real as one's own world - that it exists,
just barely out of reach."

More important is the question of what our children should be reading. There comes a point where you have to get over the stunning fact that your child is actually reading a book and think about what he or she is actually reading. Twelve year olds love professional wrestling and Bart Siimpson, too, but if you are thrilled that Billy is at least watching TV, you should have your parenting license revoked (yes - I use the v-chip and don't have cable) . A good book exposes a child to systematic thinking, consequences, clear expression of ideas and rhetorical skills. A poor one discourages critical thinking or the awareness of the motivations of others. J K Rowling does not fail utterly in these regard but to say that young adult literature is best judged by young adults is short-sighted in a way that highlights many of the problems in parenting of the last few decades.

*** Harry Potter Spoiled ***

She did it. J K Rowling flubbed the ending. I think part of the problem stems from the fact that after writing a book filled with thrilling adventures and near escapes, it is nearly impossible for the ending to be anything but an anti-climax.

In the case of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, she pulls a couple of fast ones. She inserts two - count 'em, two! - scenes to try and cleanup difficult situations. One addresses the Harry-Voldemort connection by bringing the narrator... I mean Dumbledore... in a dream-sequence/near-death-experience complete with white fluffy clouds. Then she throws in a suffering, injured baby whom we are instructed to ignore. Maybe I am just dense and don't "get" the universal symbolism here.

The second plot device involves Harry's viewing of the late Severus Snape's memories. Ah, Snape! Would you believe the character pivotal to the cliffhanger at the end of the previous book hardly appears in the finale at all? Yes. Instead the reader is force fed some twaddle about how Snape had been protecting Harry all these years because of his life-long love for Harry's mother and the piece of her that lives on in Harry. What?! Where was the ambiguity of Snape's view of Harry in the previous several thousand pages? Snape's distaste for Harry and the traits that Snape believed Harry shared with his father were completely untainted in the rest of the books by Harry's supposedly sharing of "Lily's eyes." There may have been a tidbit thrown in somewhere that I don't remember but the gross arc of Snape's character development made this sudden twist seem arbitrary. It is like introducing an evil twin in the final scene. If you are writing a book driven by discovery of clues, the reader must reach the last page saying, "Of Course! Why didn't I see it all along."

Rowling's failure (along with that of Philip Pullman) has pretty much soured me on writing anything myself. The danger of becoming that which I despise is just too great.

P.S.: Among the many failed Harry Potter predictions posted on the internet these past weeks was mine, predicting that I would not read the damn book. I bought it the first day at 9 am and stayed up 'til 1:30 am last night to finish it. At least the curse is now lifted!

The Inevitable Harry Potter Post

*** Warning - Multiple Possible Spoilers ***

I planned not to read Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. After a few months, I relented and checked out one of the six copies on the library shelf. Not a great book. Just like the others nothing much happens until the last 20 pages. Liked the girl friend bits. Was really annoyed about Snape!!!

Will I read the Deathly Hallows? I don't plan to (see above). If I find out the ending, which seems inevitable, will I even bother to read this one? I have been avoiding most of the hype because I am working on a writing project of my own and don't want to "contaminate" it. That said, Rowling has a lot to pull off here. She has to explain Snape's actions plus Dumbledore's confidence in him. Snape is the most interesting character in the whole book and she could easily screw that up. Let's face it, she is no literary goddess. I draw your attention to the Goblet of Fire. I know she apologized but she is under extreme pressure here, too.

Why am I dwelling on the potential for this to end with a thud? Three words: The Golden Compass. This series started out quite good. I cried when God died (I was mourning my own father's death but still ...) The spectres scared the bejesus out of me - much eerier than the dementers, which weren't too bad themselves. Then in the last book, we learn what the temptation is - teen sex! What? That is it? And then the spectres turn out to be created whenever the s0-called subtle knife is used to cut an opening between dimensions. Give me a freakin' break. It was so lame I simply could not believe it.

So, since Rowling's first six efforts have produced many ups and downs (maybe she should take out the bad stuff and just write shorter books - heehee) I approach the seventh, pivotal work with much trepidation.

Just so you know

What's the Point?

Went to fetch a book to read to the kids before turning out the light. I grabbed the "Children's Book of Bible Stories" or whatever because the kids stay focused on it and this is part of the Devil's bargain I seem to have made that we raise the children "within the church." I am not sure when the day will come when I am authorized to introduce some skepticism but I winced when, at the end of the partially-sanitized Jonah story, the book claims that "God was happy the he did not have to destroy the people of Nineveh." Imagine me saying, "I'm glad that my wife stopped running up the credit cards. Now I don't have to kill her!"

Any way, as I read the Garden of Eden bit I found myself considering sitting down and tracing the different source threads in Genesis. Then I asked myself why... ? I realized that if I am looking for something to throw up to a Believer as a justification for rejecting Christianity (my opportunities to enter that debate are limited - I'm not that confrontational face-to-face) then I am wasting my time. The actual contents of the book on which Christians claim to base their belief is irrelevant. Sure, some theologians and Bible-thumpers might care, but 99.9% of Christians have no idea what the details of the Bible are and are familiar with only a handful of stories. Confronting them with contradictions would require that they had ever even heard of the thing being contradicted. Understanding and dealing with Christians then, when even possible, must be a matter of generic questions of Evil, Free Will, morality and maybe only a sprinkling of abhorrent God acts.