Bill Ott

In my personal opinion, this disappoints. Ok, I guess an actual librarian or other 'insider' would probably enjoy it more. But I am glad I read it. Some book darts:

I know that, in today's world, the fact that you like sports and have a lot of friends is never going to win you a starring role in a YA novel." It's just like the Globe - if everyone feels like or claims to be an outsider, an innovator, not from inside the Beltway, different... it's the insiders who are the ones truly different... just like, if you keep travelling West, you get to the East of where you started out.

E.B. White hated "symbol hunters" and claims that Charlotte's Web is 'a straight report from the barn cellar... a hymn to the barn, an acceptance of dung.' Ott considers: "Introducing fantasy into a book intended to celebrate the reality of farm life was a dangerous move.... Will the manure still smell when the spiders become prose stylists?" And, btw, White was a farmer, and had slaughtered pigs for meat.

And then there are the quizzes, which give me a lot more titles to add to my to-read lists...."… (mere)

This is the first time I have read Booklist from cover to cover and I found many of the features very helpful such as the comments after some adult books that they would also be appropriate for young adults (denoted by a “YA”), the starred reviews which were isolated by their own boxes and the Spotlights. This volume’s Spotlights were Science-Fiction/Fantasy and Reference and notable books in each of these genres were reviewed in the adult section as well as the young adult and children’s sections. The spotlights were easy to find since they are printed on a green background and each age range included a “Top 10” of the year, starred reviews and a “Sci-Fi/Fantasy Fiction in Brief” section. Also of note was the article on the dystopian trend in YA novels, the extensive audio book reviews section and the wonderful spotlight on Reference works. A must read for any librarian or lover of books.… (mere)