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Early this morning I was surfing a board I read kinda irregularly, and rarely post to, when I saw someone talking about TBONWM. Of course, I went to take a look, and this is what I saw:
Has anyone read The Book of Night with Moon by Diane Duane?
Fantastic book.
How many of you have read Duane's "So You Want to Be a Wizard", and the other books in that series? It's kids' fantasy, for the most part, though some of it's points - entropy, heatdeath of the universe - probably go right over the heads of it's younger readers.
This is set in the same world, same universe, same general rules. The biggest difference, though, is that the main characters are cats. Cat wizards, living in New York city.
On the surface, it probably sounds like a cheesy, children's thing, and I suppose that once again, it's supposed to be a kids' book. Though I've never met the kid who could understand all the things in this book.
The best part about this book, as far as I can see, is how perfectly she weaves a cat.. culture into the book, and combines it with the cat wizards. And she makes quite a few references to all the usual cat behaviors; the scratching, the purring, the wierd way they behave towards each other.
Well. Not exactly a well structured review here, but, if any of you need ideas, or just want a break from the usual fantasy, give this book at try.
You don't need to have read the So You Want To Be A Wizard books either, though you may catch more references if you have.
(Cut and paste job, BTW: I did not ask permission of the poster to do this and I'm real sorry for that but I couldn't contact them. I probably should have asked in my annoyed response to the post, but I forgot. But I didn't edit this at all, so I hope I'm not misrepresenting this person)
And I got... incensed, and replied basically in that state (I was very polite, though. I told him that I knew lots of "kids," and linked the forum, who had a perfect understanding of these "complex" points, and also could use apostrophes correctly, which is more that can be said of him. Frankly they're not all that complex anyway; the treatment of them and some of the ethical ideals might be, though of course not "too difficult" a standard, but the idea of entropy as treated in SYWTBAW is not a hugely difficult one, and if he/she thought it was they might be the ones with the problems.)
Anyway, then I was thinking about it, and thinking what a stupid, stupid idea that was (And thinking about myself at seventeen probably still classified as a "kid," and the numerous "kids" on the forum, and also anywhere else reading these books, and the total injustice that's been done them by this utter tit, and
) and then I was just thinking about the idea of Young Adult literature, and Children's, and Adults, and whether people can or can't understand stuff at different ages.
Personally, I decided, I think there is, from time to time, stuff that kids- and I don't mean kids as in the target YW group, I mean kids as in six or seven year olds- don't understand, most of which centers around sex and sexual politics. My best friend often gives a classic example of how when she was six or so she was reading some dodgy historical fiction tome- I can't remember the title- and reading a reasonably graphic sex scene, which she read pretty much without comprehension- it's not that she didn't understand what was happening, she didn't understand the significance. (Interesting sidenote: although she read the scene, and wasn't embarassed just didn't understand, she told her parents that she'd skipped that scene. I've always thought that was the most interesting bit of the story, but perhaps not really relevent here.) Young Adults- in the sense meant by the bookshop classification here- on the other hand would almost certainly understand it. Scratch that, make it certainly. We're not stupid here.
However, with the dubious exception of sex, I don't believe that there is anything kids don't understand when they read. (How condescending "kids" sounds... I don't mean it like that.) Of course, this depends on how much a kid reads and whether he or she wants to understand, is engaged, and stuff. But for any child where there is a connection involved, of course they understand. If he's "never met a child who could understand this book," well frankly I've never met a child who couldn't.
How about you? What do you think? Shall we grammar-bash this idiot? Is that unkind? Was this whole post just an excuse for me to be nasty to this guy in a way I wasn't in my restrained post? Is that fair? Is it ironic that after complaining about his grammar I then misspelt comparison ("comparision") in the title to my response?
Has anyone read The Book of Night with Moon by Diane Duane?
Fantastic book.
How many of you have read Duane's "So You Want to Be a Wizard", and the other books in that series? It's kids' fantasy, for the most part, though some of it's points - entropy, heatdeath of the universe - probably go right over the heads of it's younger readers.
This is set in the same world, same universe, same general rules. The biggest difference, though, is that the main characters are cats. Cat wizards, living in New York city.
On the surface, it probably sounds like a cheesy, children's thing, and I suppose that once again, it's supposed to be a kids' book. Though I've never met the kid who could understand all the things in this book.
The best part about this book, as far as I can see, is how perfectly she weaves a cat.. culture into the book, and combines it with the cat wizards. And she makes quite a few references to all the usual cat behaviors; the scratching, the purring, the wierd way they behave towards each other.
Well. Not exactly a well structured review here, but, if any of you need ideas, or just want a break from the usual fantasy, give this book at try.
You don't need to have read the So You Want To Be A Wizard books either, though you may catch more references if you have.
(Cut and paste job, BTW: I did not ask permission of the poster to do this and I'm real sorry for that but I couldn't contact them. I probably should have asked in my annoyed response to the post, but I forgot. But I didn't edit this at all, so I hope I'm not misrepresenting this person)
And I got... incensed, and replied basically in that state (I was very polite, though. I told him that I knew lots of "kids," and linked the forum, who had a perfect understanding of these "complex" points, and also could use apostrophes correctly, which is more that can be said of him. Frankly they're not all that complex anyway; the treatment of them and some of the ethical ideals might be, though of course not "too difficult" a standard, but the idea of entropy as treated in SYWTBAW is not a hugely difficult one, and if he/she thought it was they might be the ones with the problems.)
Anyway, then I was thinking about it, and thinking what a stupid, stupid idea that was (And thinking about myself at seventeen probably still classified as a "kid," and the numerous "kids" on the forum, and also anywhere else reading these books, and the total injustice that's been done them by this utter tit, and
) and then I was just thinking about the idea of Young Adult literature, and Children's, and Adults, and whether people can or can't understand stuff at different ages. Personally, I decided, I think there is, from time to time, stuff that kids- and I don't mean kids as in the target YW group, I mean kids as in six or seven year olds- don't understand, most of which centers around sex and sexual politics. My best friend often gives a classic example of how when she was six or so she was reading some dodgy historical fiction tome- I can't remember the title- and reading a reasonably graphic sex scene, which she read pretty much without comprehension- it's not that she didn't understand what was happening, she didn't understand the significance. (Interesting sidenote: although she read the scene, and wasn't embarassed just didn't understand, she told her parents that she'd skipped that scene. I've always thought that was the most interesting bit of the story, but perhaps not really relevent here.) Young Adults- in the sense meant by the bookshop classification here- on the other hand would almost certainly understand it. Scratch that, make it certainly. We're not stupid here.
However, with the dubious exception of sex, I don't believe that there is anything kids don't understand when they read. (How condescending "kids" sounds... I don't mean it like that.) Of course, this depends on how much a kid reads and whether he or she wants to understand, is engaged, and stuff. But for any child where there is a connection involved, of course they understand. If he's "never met a child who could understand this book," well frankly I've never met a child who couldn't.
How about you? What do you think? Shall we grammar-bash this idiot? Is that unkind? Was this whole post just an excuse for me to be nasty to this guy in a way I wasn't in my restrained post? Is that fair? Is it ironic that after complaining about his grammar I then misspelt comparison ("comparision") in the title to my response?
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