Posts on books i love to hate

My library’s summer reading program kicked off this week, after two weeks of early registration. Monday was totally crazy, as kids poured in to sign up and start reporting their books!

I have a love/hate relationship with our summer reading clubs. Mainly I hate explaining the rules dozens of times per day. Couldn’t we just get on the emergency loudspeaker and broadcast the rules to the entire village at once? I’m also not big on the paperwork aspect: filling out registration cards and reading logs, making sure we have plenty of copies of each. Boring!

It’s more fun to talk about what I love. I love how our paperback racks go from stuffed to half-empty as soon as sign-up begins. I love walking into the stacks and seeing kids lying sprawled on the floor with a good book. And I love the kids’ online book reviews.

Kids entering fifth through ninth grade have the option of reporting their books on paper or online. We approve the reviews before they show up on our website, but we don’t correct them beyond the spelling of title and author (so the link to our library catalog will work). Some of the kids put a lot of thought and energy into the reviews, making them sweetly earnest. And, very often, they give me a good laugh.

On The Year of Secret Assignments, by Jaclyn Moriarty:
“This stitch in your side, laugh out loud novel, was incredulously entertaining.”

On The Secret Garden, by Frances Hodgson Burnett:
“With the garden an animal lover and a boy who never did anything love is possible!”

On Skellig, by David Almond:
“The defining question in this book is what are shoulder blades for?”*

This year, our prizes are especially nice. We’re fortunate to have a generous budget, so we’re shelling out for paperback books as prizes. The Friends of the Library are funding Borders gift cards for our oldest club. It’s very nice, from a conservation and literary value standpoint, not to be buying a bunch of made-in-China, possibly-lead-filled toys.

I’ve enjoyed reading Abby the Librarian’s posts about her library’s summer reading club prizes. Kids’ incentives include ringing a gong and putting a book plate in a library book of their choice. How fun is that?

Does anyone know other libraries who are veering from the junky toy route this summer?

*I found this especially hilarious because Skellig is one of those books my coworker J. and I love to hate. I’ve actually read several of David Almond’s books, so obviously I have some tolerance for them (or I’m a masochist—jury’s still out). I think it’s that I love the concepts of his books, but I get bogged down in the execution. They’re just a bit too weird for me.

J. and I have a running joke about Skellig and David Almond’s other books, which I pretty much blame on this sentence from Booklist’s review of The Fire-Eaters: “For anyone who loves words, Almond's books are a pleasure.” To which I say: “ORLY? I guess I’m a big ole word-hater…”

Alison at ShelfTalker has a post with lots of juicy comments about books loved by everyone but you.

I'm usually reluctant to dish out criticism online. In the past, a few too many random people have taken my criticism of a freakin' book as cause to insult me personally, and that hurts my feelings more than I want to admit. (Yes, I am thin-skinned; sue me; just don't pick on me!)

Second, I'm afraid that someday I'll meet the authors and they'll hate my guts because I was vocal about hating their book. And I know it could happen, because I've already met very cool authors of books I couldn't stand. (If you're reading this, there's a 99.99% chance it was not you.)

Third, life's too short to accentuate the negative. Since I'm not a professional critic, I'd rather save my scathing remarks for late night literary conversations with friends. It's more fun that way.

I suppose I ought not to be shy about criticizing books by people who are bestselling authors or dead, because neither gives a fig what I think. And I will say that I share the opinions of several commenters on the ShelfTalker post. However, my fourth reason for not posting about books I hate (and I will have to break my own rule to give it) is this:

Hands down, the worst book I have read in my entire life is The Celestine Prophecy, by James Redfield. It is a literary black hole. It is Absolute Zero. It is the most clumsily written, ridiculously plotted piece of pseudo-spiritual dogmatic hooey ever to hit the mainstream—much less hit the bestseller list. It's hard to complain about any other book, knowing it is still out there, lurking in libraries and bookstores and people's bookshelves at home, waiting for someone to open the cover. I challenge anyone to name worse.