I read this book a few weeks ago in a frenzy of library-induced-newbery-book-reading and am only just now writing the review.
---(sorry - these are paragraph placeholders - I can't get blogger to cooperate today...)
Part of me feels a bit guilty - is it really fair to review a book several weeks after the reading?
---
The other side of me feels like as a Newbery Award winner, it should be good enough to leave a lasting impression on my phsychy. Afterall, the award goes to "influential" fiction, and thus should leave a lasting impression (or at least my rationalization goes!).
---
At the time of the reading I found the book cute. To this day when I think of it, I cannot help but smile. A cute little mouse, an evil rat, a weird human/rodent relationship and a liberal sprinkling of the word "perfidy". The tongue in cheek narration fits the story quite well.
---
Unfortunately, it was not the kind of book that made any real, lasting impression. Once the cover closed, it remained a cute story about a mouse, but didn't excite my imagination or invoke a particularly novel idea. I would consider the reading level to be similar to "The Whipping Boy", so it's not the fact it's for a younger audience that makes it shallow for me.
---
On the other hand, my mother seems to find joy in 90% of the Newbery books she reviews and I'm being annoyed by 90%. I must face the fact that I somehow need to shift my thinking.
---
I think this book is best suited to being read aloud to younger children. As I was silently reading to myself, I could barely restrain myself from making the voices of the characters come alive through my voice.
3 comments:
I actually have not read this book yet. I have meant to get around to it eventually. And now that a movie has been made of it, I must read the book first!
I hope I am getting you to reconsider your immediate dislikes, as you are provoking me to look more critically at the works.
A lot of books have been written starring mice. My favorite remains Alexander and the Wind-up Mouse, by Leo Leonini. Very poignant.
I have not read the Leo Leonini book. I did enjoy Redwall (to my suprise) and actually do recall enjoying the rats of NIHM (which, being a newbery book, should probably be one of my next books).
Post a Comment