| ||||
|
Arts & Entertainment Books Comics Health & Body Media  Mothers Who ThinkNews People Politics2000 Technology - Free Software Project Travel & Food  Columnists
Current Click here to read the latest stories from the wires. - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - - - Also Today For a full list of today's Salon Mothers Who Think stories, go to the
Mothers Who Think home page. - - - - - - - - - - - - Search Salon - - - - - - - - - - - - Recently in Salon Mothers Who Think Complete archives for Mothers Who Think - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - |
Books for bad children | page 1, 2
"Witches and Magic-Makers" is an Eyewitness book, a series whose design shook juvenile nonfiction when it first appeared in the '80s. Images of objects -- mostly photos -- are scattered against a white background, with brief captions and, occasionally, a thin black rule around the edge of the page to reign them in. The design gives the appearance of objectivity -- somewhere between a museum guide and a scrapbook. A delightful pair of novels for 10-year-olds, the first two books in "A
Series of Unfortunate Events," make no attempt at objectivity. Lemony
Snicket, the (surely pseudonymous) author, twists the conventions of juvenile literature around his little finger. "If you are interested in stories with happy endings, you would be better off reading some other book," he writes in the opening of "The Bad Beginning," going on to say: Violet, Klaus and Sunny lose their parents in a horrible fire and get sent to live with their evil cousin Count Olaf in his dismal mansion. Olaf tries scheme after scheme to get his hands on their vast fortune: He dangles the infant Sunny out the window in a birdcage and tries to trick 14-year-old Violet into marrying him. The Baudelaires' friends and guardians, well-intentioned but hapless, refuse to believe them again and again as they beg for help. Fortunately, the children are intelligent and resourceful enough to foil Olaf in both books, and to provide readers with admirable heroes with whom they can identify. But Snicket, true to his word, never lets them rest on their laurels. Again and again he rescues Olaf, to ensure that he will return in all his dastardliness later in the series. The books are appealing objects -- small and thick, with deckle-edged pages and graceful illustrations -- at once dramatic, understated and humorous. Any young reader should be delighted to find them in her trick-or-treat bag. The Random House Book of Ghost Stories. Edited by Susan Hill. Illustrated by Angela Barrett. Random House, 1991, 223 pages A Newbery Halloween: A Dozen Scary Stories by Newbery Award-Winning Authors. Selected by Martin H. Greenberg and Charles G. Waugh. Delacorte Press, 1993, 189 pages A Terrifying Taste of Short and Shivery: Thirty Creepy Tales. Retold by Robert D. San Souci. Illustrated by Lenny Wooden. Delacorte Press, 1998, 159 pages The Witch Who Was Afraid of Witches. By Alice Low. Pictures by Jane Manning. HarperCollins, 1999, 48 pages Witches and Magic-Makers. By Douglas Hill. Eyewitness Books/Knopf, 1997, 60 pages The Bad Beginning. By Lemony Snicket. Illustrated by Brett Helquist. HarperTrophy, 1999, 163 pages The Reptile Room. By Lemony Snicket. Illustrated by Brett Helquist.
HarperTrophy, 1999, 191 pages
- - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - - - Search Salon | |||
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
