I Was Told There Would Be No Math
I’ve noticed a veritable plethora of books this year dealing with, of all ungodly subjects, math. It seemed innocent enough in The Puzzling World of Winston Breen. And I was willing to shut my eyes to it in The Lemonade War. But about the time I ran across a fictional work with a plot hinging on algebra (Do the Math: Secrets, Lies, and Algebra by Wendy Lichtman) I began to suspect that I was losing my mind. Math and fiction? Why the world’s gone all higglety-pigglety on us! Up is down! Right is wrong! Math is fun!
But how could I be so short sighted? After all, when a Mr. Mark Dominus decided to make an economic analysis of a book on his blog, what did he pick? Why A Bargain for Frances, of course of course. After a bit of particular captivating probing into the depths of trade and "backsies" (as it were), Dominus sums it up thusly:
Good children’s literature does reward a close reading, and like good adult literature, reveals additional depths on multiple readings. It seems to me that books for small children are more insipid than they used to be, but that could just be fuddy-duddyism, or it could be selection bias: I no longer remember the ones I loved as a child that would now seem insipid precisely because they would now seem insipid.
But the ability to produce good literature at any level is rare, so it is probably just that there only a few great writers in every generation can do it. Russell Hoban was one of the best here.
Thanks to Oz and Ends (not to mention the child_lit listserv) for the link.
Filed under: Uncategorized
About Betsy Bird
Betsy Bird is currently the Collection Development Manager of the Evanston Public Library system and a former Materials Specialist for New York Public Library. She has served on Newbery, written for Kirkus, and has done other lovely little things that she'd love to tell you about but that she's sure you'd find more interesting to hear of in person. Her opinions are her own and do not reflect those of EPL, SLJ, or any of the other acronyms you might be able to name. Follow her on BlueSky at: @fuse8.bsky.social
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Don’t forget all the math in John Green’s AN ABUNDANCE OF KATHERINE’S!
Hey! I know Mark Dominus! Maybe I better post about this, too…