Here is an excerpt from a recent review of Molly’s Cue:
The plot is linear and uncomplicated, the style undemanding, and the chapters very short, typically subdivided and averaging only about eight pages. Molly’s Cue may appeal to readers for whom high-school is a distant prospect, but anyone entering those doors for the first time would likely have long outgrown the text intellectually, if not emotionally.
Wow.
This was written by Rick Gooding, a sessional English teacher at UBC (it always adds an extra twist when the review is by someone you know, doesn’t it?) and appears in the journal, Canadian Literature.
There are ways to consider this, and it might depend on the day. If, for instance, I’ve just received a rejection from Canada Council, it’s not going to be a good time to read this. If, as happened this past week, I’ve been accepted to be one of the touring writers for Canadian Children’s Book Centre TD Book Week 2012, then my mind might be sufficiently softened to wonder if there’s something to this, or if indeed there so soundly is NOT that I can push it away from me. In a “good” moment I might wonder what’s negative about “uncomplicated” in a book written for a 12 year old reader, for someone who might appreciate reading for pleasure; and in a bad moment, I might wonder if perhaps Rick has ever wanted, or tried, to write for young people himself. Or if he ever was a young person, and not someone mired in post-secondary politics and theories. It’s easy to forget the concept or creating of pleasure in academic life. Even though, I believe, it’s what learning is about.
Then there’s the math. He really has time and inclination to find the average number of pages in chapters? And cite this as indicative of…what? Oh my.
I hear peanut butter on slices of banana is a nice natural way to up your levels of serotonin. Cheer up, Rick.