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...tough cultural climate for professional critics--the people paid to have views that are supposed to be, well, better. Even personal trainers can be certified. But the authority of critics rests on their powers of persuasion alone. "In a sense, we're all self-appointed," says David Denby, who writes about movies for the New Yorker, a magazine that prides itself on the luster of its critical writing. "There are no tests, like in law school. You just have to assert yourself and be able to write, and there are degrees of ability up and down the scale...
...Amazon's "Associates Program" can earn commissions when people reading their reviews click on a hyperlink to Amazon and buy the product being reviewed. The payments are modest, up to 15%, but any sales commission amounts to an incentive to post favorable comments. Meanwhile, JoeytheFilmGeek and the Flick Filosopher write screenplays, which raises the question of whether they can objectively review product by the same film studios they might hope to interest in their scripts. In her recent rave review of Francis Coppola's Apocalypse Now Redux, the Flick Filosopher even mentions having shopped a script unsuccessfully to Coppola...
Creech manages to write about serious themes in a way that engages kids and is never heavy-handed. A Fine, Fine School revolves around a principal who loves his work so much that he decides to keep his school open longer and longer, until the students are attending classes on weekends and holidays. It takes Tillie, a little girl, to make the principal come to his senses. "I haven't learned how to climb very high in my tree," she protests. "And I haven't learned how to sit in my tree for a whole hour." Creech's prose...
Love That Dog, for older children, is appealing to adult readers as well. Jack, a reluctant student, resists poetry assignments from his teacher, Miss Stretchberry. "I don't want to because boys don't write poetry," he pouts. But slowly Jack comes to savor poems, through the subtle persuasion of Miss Stretchberry, who is never heard from or described on the page. Through poetry, Jack comes to grips with the death of his beloved yellow dog, Sky: "He was such a funny dog/that dog Sky/that straggly furry smiling dog Sky." The book, deceptively simple and never preachy, is studded with...
...LIKE DOGS, CAN TURN NASTY IN A PACK Ever notice that your child acts like another, less responsible person around his friends? "The presence of the group, and kids' need for acceptance at any price, gives individuals 'permission' to drink more, act reckless, and show poor judgment," the authors write. "Most importantly, however, the presence of the group seems to diminish the sense of morality and individual responsibility that children possess." Another reason to pay close attention to which pack your kid runs with...