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A review by bethgiven
Deconstructing Penguins: Parents, Kids, and the Bond of Reading by Nancy Goldstone, Lawrence Goldstone
4.0
I love my book club. Talking about a book, even when it wasn't my favorite, helps me to like it more -- I feel like I understand the themes better. Even in casual conversation, I can't resist when people start talking books. (Probably why I enjoy Goodreads so much.)
So it's no real surprise that I devoured this book in a day: it was just like sitting in on a book club meeting! The authors pick apart children's books (some I'd read and some I hadn't -- yet), and the whole thing reads in an easy-to-swallow mix of narration and conversation. I learned some techniques for analyzing fiction that I'll have to try out: identifying the protagonist and antagonist as keys to what the story is really about, the setting as a hint to whether the book will have a happy or a sad ending, and identifying the conflict (which is usually in the middle, not the end of the book). I especially enjoyed the chapter on poetry (surprisingly enough, since I usually don't care much for poetry!).
I don't necessarily agree with all the authors' conclusions (particularly The Giver -- though it could be that I don't understand where they're coming from on that one), and sometimes the know-it-all attitude rankled a bit. And this book wasn't at all what I expected (I was thinking it would be a rah-rah-reading book, like Jim Trelease's wonderful Read-Aloud Handbook -- you know, it would have something about that "bond of reading" the subtitle promised). But this book was just so readable and the ideas so solid that I still "really liked it" (four stars!) in spite of all that. Definitely worth a look if you're a parent or an educator ... or even if you're not.
So it's no real surprise that I devoured this book in a day: it was just like sitting in on a book club meeting! The authors pick apart children's books (some I'd read and some I hadn't -- yet), and the whole thing reads in an easy-to-swallow mix of narration and conversation. I learned some techniques for analyzing fiction that I'll have to try out: identifying the protagonist and antagonist as keys to what the story is really about, the setting as a hint to whether the book will have a happy or a sad ending, and identifying the conflict (which is usually in the middle, not the end of the book). I especially enjoyed the chapter on poetry (surprisingly enough, since I usually don't care much for poetry!).
I don't necessarily agree with all the authors' conclusions (particularly The Giver -- though it could be that I don't understand where they're coming from on that one), and sometimes the know-it-all attitude rankled a bit. And this book wasn't at all what I expected (I was thinking it would be a rah-rah-reading book, like Jim Trelease's wonderful Read-Aloud Handbook -- you know, it would have something about that "bond of reading" the subtitle promised). But this book was just so readable and the ideas so solid that I still "really liked it" (four stars!) in spite of all that. Definitely worth a look if you're a parent or an educator ... or even if you're not.