Finished the book this morning. Powerful and wrenching. Thank you so much for the recommendation.
I was surprised, as I was reading, at how vivid this book was given how much telling (as opposed to showing) Ursu was doing. Not that she didn't show at all: she did show us quite a lot, but she also spelled out for us, often, what Hazel was learning from her quest.
Many children's lit authors put me off by assuming their audience won't pick up simple queues and therefore underscoring the meaning of events too much. It's condescending, and ultimately unnecessary: readers who care about meaning will glean it from the story itself, whatever their age. And there's nothing wrong with finding a story has grown when you return to it, having grown yourself.
But when this story told me what some things meant, I found I didn't mind. Haven't quite worked out why yet -- perhaps because the storyteller was not condescending to Hazel?
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momijizukamori and
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Date: 2012-09-03 03:43 pm (UTC)I was surprised, as I was reading, at how vivid this book was given how much telling (as opposed to showing) Ursu was doing. Not that she didn't show at all: she did show us quite a lot, but she also spelled out for us, often, what Hazel was learning from her quest.
Many children's lit authors put me off by assuming their audience won't pick up simple queues and therefore underscoring the meaning of events too much. It's condescending, and ultimately unnecessary: readers who care about meaning will glean it from the story itself, whatever their age. And there's nothing wrong with finding a story has grown when you return to it, having grown yourself.
But when this story told me what some things meant, I found I didn't mind. Haven't quite worked out why yet -- perhaps because the storyteller was not condescending to Hazel?