One-Star Reviews! by Joy McCullough

A few weeks ago, a friend was smarting from some editor responses to her MG novel on submission. One said it was heavy-handed. Another said the pacing was slow. I’ve read this book. It’s absolutely beautiful.

To cheer her up, I went looking for 1-star reviews of books I know she loves. Here’s what I found. (I've only edited for profanity.)

Newbery Medal Winner BECAUSE OF WINN-DIXIE:

It is too jumbled premiss. If someone recommends this book SAY NO!!!

What a poorly written piece of crap.

Worst book ever written, I wish I could give it 0 stars!!

Newbery Medal Winner THE ONE AND ONLY IVAN:

Clearly the most ill-deserved of newberies.

It's the stupidest thing ever.

I am not sure how this twaddle gained so many 5 star ratings! The choppy writing was tedious to read & frankly uninspiring.

Newbery Medal Winner WALK TWO MOONS:

I shan't dignify this flaming turd with a review.

would rate it zero stars if i could. STUPID BOOK

SO contrived that I couldn't bear to keep reading.

But there’s a difference between a random Goodreads reviewers and a big-time editor or agent, you say? Not really. I mean, sure in the influence they wield. But editors and agents are just people, and their views are just as subjective as any reader who picks up a book and loathes it with the fire of a thousand suns. Or LOVES it with the same fire.

I know my friend will find the editor who LOVES her book. But in the meantime, I looked up some more widely acclaimed books, to see what some readers had to say.

National Book Award Winner THE PENDERWICKS:

To put it simply, this book was awful and twee.

The result was something that any high schooler, or even middle schooler, with a reasonable amount of talent for writing could have written.

Newbery Medal Winner WHEN YOU REACH ME:

This book stinks !! It's so confusing !

If only Rebecca Stead had stopped 50 pgs earlier - I would just have called this book terrible, bizarre, and a waist of my time

It was just a poor book with a poor subject, poor writing, poor characters, and poor everything.

Newbery Medal Winner CHARLOTTE’S WEB (16,000-1 stars)

Yeah, he's 'some pig!' Well that 'some pig' is going to get old. This is a farm. They don't waste things. Sorry. They just can't. He's still on the chopping blocking. He will still be made into sausages. They are not going to let him die and bury him in the pet graveyard.

Newbery Medal Winner: FROM THE MIXED-UP FILES OF MRS. BASIL E. FRANKWEILER

Dear Lord, this book is bad.

Dull, dull, dull!

I found it pretentious and dull. Also, Mrs. Frankweiler is a grump.

This might be the most boring and confusing and boring and boring book ever written. Find a different book. Did I mention it was boring?

HARRIET THE SPY

i litterally hated this book SO MUCH that i UGHGHGHDHFGHDSFAIH anyway...... i read it each night because i had to for book club... but after like 2 NIGHTS i got SO FED UP WITH it that I STARTED SCREAMING i RIPPED IT UP IN LITTERAL RAGE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AND I MADE IT INTO A SOUP AND FED IT TO MY STUFFED ANIMALS

Newbery Medal Winner: HOLES

LET ME START OFF BY SAYING THAT I ABSOLUTELY HATED EVERY PAGE OF THIS BOOK THAT I READ.

I guess it was okay…for an elementary school reader.

I hate this piece of [expletive]. I hate Louis Sachar. Anarchist [expletive]. This book has no soul.

AAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGG!!!!!!!! The most over-read book in history!

Hugo Award Winner CORALINE

The writing reflects laziness on both the editor and author's part. The story sounds too much like something that came from a 6th grade classroom, and the writing isn't much better.

THIS monstrosity failed the able-to-read test on every one of my levels.

Newbery Medal Winner PRINCESS ACADEMY

I couldn't get around the unseemly and awkward phrasing, so bad I couldn't enjoy the story. My impression is that the author is not well-read; her word-usage is just slightly off.

Ugh Just Ugh. It was so dumb. I don't like it at all, and I'm dreading the next one.

Newbery Medal Winner A WRINKLE IN TIME (with an impressive16,000 1-star reviews):

The story takes about 100 pages of tedious, banal dialogue, to get to the point where you are told that this is a battle against Evil, and all you need is love. But everything is so oversimplified, so sketchy

the book appears to have been written by someone that has never actually met a real human being before.

Why it remains in print is beyond me.

This book was utterly crap…Pretty cringe-worthy IMO.

In my opinion, this is all a little much for a children's story.

And that final quote about A WRINKLE IN TIME is kind of perfect, really. Because Madeleine L’Engle herself said, “If the book will be too difficult for grown-ups, then you write it for children.”

So that reader who felt it was “a little too much for a children’s story” wasn’t young enough to get it. It wasn’t their fault. They weren’t the right reader for the story.

If you’re struggling with rejections at any stage, I recommend looking up the 1-star reviews of books you love. (It only works with books you love; if you despise A WRINKLE IN TIME too, you’ll only feel self-righteous agreement when reading the 1-star reviews.)

To find them, look up a book in Goodreads. Scroll down to where it says Community Reviews. Hover over Filter and you should see the following:

Then select where it says 1-star!

My 2015 Caldecott Quandary by Jim Hill

It has been a fantastic, groundbreaking awards season for graphic novels. El Deafo was named a Newbery Honor, and This One Summer earned both a Printz Honor and a Caldecott Honor.

*Record scratch*

Wait, what? There’s a book that can get both a Printz–the YA award–and a Caldecott? The Caldecott? The one for picture books? For little kids? You’re seriously telling me this? Shut up.

Right? I thought the same thing. I hadn’t yet read This One Summer when the awards were announced. I had seen the cover, and thumbed through it at the bookstore, so I knew it to be a beautifully illustrated book. As soon as the snow stopped and the libraries opened again (hash tag snowmageddon), I got my hands on it.

The illustrations are fantastic. Evocative, well paced with an artful use of splash pages that break out of the panel format to mark chapter endings and important story points. It’s blue–a choice made in production by Jillian and Mariko Tamaki that, in my opinion, elevates the art and the emotional stakes while at the same time softening a sometimes difficult story by providing a little psychic distance for the reader. Blue is a calming color after all. It’s also entirely appropriate as it relates to the setting at Awago Beach, and the importance that water plays in the story.

So why don’t I love the idea that it received a Caldecott Honor? Age range and subject matter.

Let me try to explain. Um, justify. Er, rationalize. Crap, this is awkward.

The material in this book is not easy stuff. It’s a coming of age story that deals with newfound sexual desire, teen pregnancy, infertility/miscarriage, parental disharmony, and even touches on class/socio-economic issues.

So, first let me say, holy cow, well done Jillian and Mariko. This is great stuff, handled authentically, honestly, and experienced deftly through the eyes of the main character.

Slap two Printz awards on the cover, and call it a day. I am all in.

But the Caldecott? You’re killing me.

To me, and I’m willing to bet to most people, the Caldecott is the picture book award. I fear there will be censorship/banning discussions fueled by parents who are upset that this material landed in their children's hands by virtue of a sticker. One look at the negative Amazon reviews reveals exactly that. What boggles my mind about those negative reviews is the objection to language, not subject matter. But that’s an argument for another day–tentative title, “What’s Wrong with You? Words Are Not the Problem, You’re the Problem.” But I digress.

Technically, This One Summer totally qualifies for the Caldecott Honor. But emotionally? Instinctually? I think the committee misstepped.

Yes, the Caldecott's second criteria says, "A ‘picture book for children’ is one for which children are an intended potential audience. The book displays respect for children’s understandings, abilities, and appreciations. Children are defined as persons of ages up to and including fourteen and picture books for this entire age range are to be considered." But has there ever been one recognized that pushes that upper limit so hard?

Parents, teachers, and librarians are confused. That doesn’t help the credibility of the award. The negative Amazon reviews and this post (with subsequent discussion in the comments) on the Hornbook blog illuminate the issue nicely.

I don’t know. On the one hand, I am over the moon that graphic novels are getting attention, sales, and shiny award stickers. Cartoonist Dani Jones might have said it best on twitter:

In my wildest dreams of winning an Eisner, Caldecott, or Newbury, I thought I had to master 3 disciplines. Turns out I can just make comics.
— Dani Jones (@danidraws) February 2, 2015

And Matthew Winner, of the excellent Let’s Get Busy podcast, nails the reason we should all read El Deafo in his Washington Post op/ed piece.

Graphic novels matter. This is great. In an online discussion with alums and students of VCFA about this issue, it was suggested that maybe it's time for a specific graphic novel award. Not to eliminate graphic novels from contention for other awards, but to shine a light on them alone. Skip age ratings–that’s a big ol’ can of worms that almost no one can come to consensus on, but celebrate the writing, the art, and the storytelling for what it is by virtue of its unique format.

David Elzey suggested an excellent name for it: The PILKEY YANG award (for Dav Pilkey, Gene Luen Yang, naturally). Sounds good to me.

My thanks to that secret board of VCFA’ers for helping me clarify my thoughts, and a special shout out to Robin Herrara for rightfully turning me around on my second (undisclosed) problem with this award for This One Summer.

Do yourself a favor–read the book and make up your own mind.

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