Book Review: Princess Shawl

[marrael]

Someone on my friendslist (sorry, I forgot who) pointed to this page a while ago: The Heroic Journey in Shirley Lim's Princess Shawl | Cabinet Des Fées, and I made a note to find the book and read it. As it happened, I ran into it at the library in the children's section, so it came home with us

Comments

[jolantru]

Mmm, it might be MG (middle grade)...

But I feel that the author should have done more research. She might have written based on her assumptions. :(

(It's alright to critique Sing To The Dawn - I thought the book was directed for younger kids myself - I am a History/English Lit teacher (though I am now firmly History/Social Studies now). ;)

[marrael]

I don't know whether it was lack of research--it was more like the historical research was there, but too often I was asking questions like "Why should I care?" and "This part of history is important because...?" The character herself doesn't wonder, the author doesn't address it, and so it also either assumes the reader knows these events or points in time already, or doesn't care, or is too young to understand (to which I disagree), or who knows what. When I think about it now, it's not unlike the Singapore history I had to suffer in my time in school--facts, figures, dates... but why should you care? ("Because you're going to be tested on it. Don't ask stupid questions.")