How to Write Better Book Reports by
Elizabeth A. Ryan
My rating:
3 of 5 stars
I picked up this book in preparation for my son's years in an American school: experience I don't have. And yes, it was so American :D Almost immediately I stumbled onto this gem: "...the best writing for young adults is by Edward Eager." Who? Oh, by the way, you "might also want to check out Ursula LeGuin." LOL. Of course I looked him up; turned out he's an American writer with a list of contemporary low fantasy for kids that I didn't find very special. Just the writer to place ahead of Ursula Le Guin, who's also American by the way. I wonder...
The book is written by a woman and, frankly, it feels like it's written to shape that stereotypical middle school girl, who gets all A's, very neat, and manages to graduate without actually learning a thing. Writing a book report mostly consists of making outlines and copying what you've written neatly several times. I especially liked the advice to "picture your audience": "With whom would you like to discuss your book? Your best friend?" Yeah. Right. We are still talking about students assigned to write a report, right? Let's face it, the only person who'll ever read it is the teacher who assigned it. So, picture your only audience, the teacher. Better be aware of it from the beginning.
The author somehow managed to reduce a book report to the level of "liked it/didn't like it" feeling at the end. Does that mean that American students are not taught literary analysis at all? Not taught to read deeper and get more from a book than a superficial feeling? Since I don't have the experience, I can't tell. But a whole chapter devoted to how to use a library must mean something. (It was also a mostly irrelevant chapter. Who looks through a paper catalog nowadays? But let's take into account when it was written.)
And taking one of the advises from the book and implementing it in this report... "This makes me think of..."
Smile as you think of how happy the hero and heroine will be together...
That line did make me think. How is that that all the books I read either have an unrealistic, forced, and absurd happy ending or a believable, relatable, and totally depressing they-all-died ending?
View all my reviews
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