The post >Matthew insists on puffed sleeves appeared first on The Horn Book.

To link this morning’s post with yesterday’s, Jonathan and Debbie Reese are arguing over at Heavy Medal about Albert Marrin.

And apropos of nothing but still burned in my mind is this sentence from Amy Sohn’s Prospect Park West, which I heard this morning on my iPod and which caused me to wonder if, when they came, they first came for the copyeditors: “Not once had Rebecca heard a mother infer even obliquely that she was hard up [for sexual gratification].” (I’m listening to this because PW gave it a starred review while over at Audible.com all the Prospect Park parents are leaving bitter comments about how bad it makes them look.)

The post >Infer this. appeared first on The Horn Book.

And can we talk about that title for a minute? In my opinion, “The Lost Symbol” is right up there with “When You Reach Me” for unmemorability, and by that I mean my inability to remember it correctly. The Secret Symbol? The Lost Code? When I Reach You? When You Get Here? Some years ago I had similar trouble with the beautiful picture book Night Driving by Jon Coy and Peter McCarty. In the space of one issue of the Horn Book I think I referred to it as Night Ride, Drive at Night and Night Drive Home (oops, that’s Joni Mitchell).

The post >Think before you write. appeared first on The Horn Book.

What I think I like most about Dan Brown is the opportunity he gives me to go around correcting everyone’s use of the term factoid to mean a small, arcane, interesting fact. But Brown uses factoids in precisely the way coiner Norman Mailer intended: small, interesting, but completely made-up bullshit designed to look as if it were true.

The post >Get Your Factoids Straight appeared first on The Horn Book.

The post >Go west, young man, WEST! appeared first on The Horn Book.

No, Joe, what you have turned off is the water supply, rendering both the pipeline AND spigot irrelevant.

The post >(Un)block that metaphor! appeared first on The Horn Book.

Apropos of nothing, I have drops in my eyes from an opthamology exam this morning and am thinking about an incredibly lame Betty Cavanna novel where the heroine’s sweet but plain best friend finally gets a date only because the guy who’s askin’ has just been to the eye doctor and can’t see clearly. Hilarious, right?

The post >I love them appeared first on The Horn Book.

The post >You’re not the boss of me, appeared first on The Horn Book.

The post >Its they’re misson! appeared first on The Horn Book.

Let’s start with the sheer–and shrill–irrationality of comparing required courses to elective ones. The report doesn’t claim that Shakespeare isn’t being taught, only that courses devoted to him are elective, signalling a dumbing-down in English education that has occurred since . . . well, since when, exactly? The report states but provides no evidence that required classes in Shakespeare used to be the order of the day. It also specifically excludes from the discussion courses that include Shakespeare among others, so a course devoted to English writing of the Elizabethan era, for example, does not count.

The attack on children’s literature, critical theory, etc. is completely predictable: it’s the same card the Music Man played when warning the good people of River City of the dangers of “Captain Billy’s Whiz-bang Book.” But even old-school English majors inclined to go along with the sympathies of the report must be embarrassed that nowhere does it ever say why English majors need a mandatory course called Shakespeare. It wants us to take his authority on their word. That’s education?

What the report is really trying to do is to use “Shakespeare” as a word to bully people. The report knows that most people pay Shakespeare the same lip service they do to Mozart, PBS, art museums and public libraries: people know they are supposed to consider these things “cultural” and important even if in real life they wouldn’t be caught dead actually giving these institutions any genuine attention. The report isn’t worried that Shakespeare isn’t been taught (it concedes that he is), just that students aren’t being forced to read him. What the American Council of Trustees and Alumni really wants is that students be taught obedience and unquestioning respect for authority. It wants people to do as they’re told.

The post >Getting the Shakes appeared first on The Horn Book.