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Junie B. Jones author Barbara Park: I’ve stopped reading about my books on the Internet because it’s too hurtful. People act as if I’m teaching children how to blow up cats.
Park’s protagonist is guilty of horrible crimes like … calling people stupid and using bad grammar.
Another one for the “sometimes kids are more sensible than grownups and sometimes grownups just need to chill out” file.
Kids have the same right adults do: to read books for fun.
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matociquala demonstrates the difference between facile and deeper writing by contrasting clips from John Denver’s “Leaving on a Jet Plane” and Gordon Lightfoot’s “Early Morning Rain.”
My first reaction, as I saw the links, was “But I like ‘Leaving on a Jet Plane.'”
But then I listened, and heard how the song reached for the predictable image, the facile cliche, the easy rhyme, the expected conclusion, every time–from being “so lonesome I could die” to the wedding ring showing up right on schedule.
While “Early Morning Rain” uses images specific to that one situation, chosen for it, all pointing toward the same tone and mood and story.
And so the latter sticks to the brain more.