Some Thoughts On Book Reviews

Here at Original Content I do what I call reader reponses to books I've read. I don't do book reviews for two reasons.

In the first place, I want to stay away from the whole "negative" and "positive" review turmoil that erupts on the Internet every now and then, especially within the kidlitosphere. Focusing only on positive reviews is bad for literary discourse and bad for writers whose books are somewhere between a glowing reviewing and a warning. On the other hand, when everything is wonderful, does wonderful mean anything?

In the second place, I don't actually know how to write a book review or what should be included. So I merely respond to what I read so I don't have to worry about meeting some kind of definition of what a review should be because I'm not reviewing.

If I were reviewing, How Not To Write a Book Review by Robert Pinsky would definitely be of assistance. If you don't want to read about snarky, nineteenth century reviewers, skip to the end where you'll see the three rules Pinsky says every review should follow.

I could have sworn that sometime this past week I also saw something children's literature related regarding reviewing, but there's no finding it now.