Comments on: Adultery for Third-Graders — A Review of ‘What I Saw and How I Lied,’ Winner of the 2008 National Book Award for Young People’s Literature http://oneminutebookreviews.wordpress.com/2009/01/09/adultery-for-third-graders-a-review-of-%e2%80%98what-i-saw-and-how-i-lied%e2%80%99-winner-of-the-2008-national-book-award-for-young-people%e2%80%99s-literature/ Janice Harayda Reviews Fiction, Nonfiction and Poetry for Adults and Children Mon, 20 May 2013 13:35:15 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: 1minutebookreviewswordpresscom http://oneminutebookreviews.wordpress.com/2009/01/09/adultery-for-third-graders-a-review-of-%e2%80%98what-i-saw-and-how-i-lied%e2%80%99-winner-of-the-2008-national-book-award-for-young-people%e2%80%99s-literature/#comment-7194 Tue, 03 Feb 2009 00:49:45 +0000 http://oneminutebookreviews.wordpress.com/?p=5822#comment-7194 I was definitely the same way as a teenager. In some ways, I enjoyed my parents’ books more than those for my age group, because I loved encountering adult realms of experience that I hadn’t known existed.

Right now publishers (and maybe educators, too) seem to think that if you don’t dumb down novels, teenagers won’t read them. I’m not sure that’s true. You could argue that because of what teenagers see on the Web and elsewhere, novels for them ought to be getting more “adult,” not less.

I’d love to know if there’s been any research in this area (whether the subject matter, reading level of the text, or something else matters most to children).
Jan

]]> By: sarahsk http://oneminutebookreviews.wordpress.com/2009/01/09/adultery-for-third-graders-a-review-of-%e2%80%98what-i-saw-and-how-i-lied%e2%80%99-winner-of-the-2008-national-book-award-for-young-people%e2%80%99s-literature/#comment-7193 Mon, 02 Feb 2009 23:31:39 +0000 http://oneminutebookreviews.wordpress.com/?p=5822#comment-7193 I picked up this book over the weekend and enjoyed it a lot — great pacing and foreshadowing. But it was definitely a strange sensation reading about noir type topics in such simple language. When I was a teenager, I didn’t mind if I didn’t understand every word in a book, because it made me feel adult trying to figure it out, either by the context or by looking it up. There is not much fear of young adults encountering challenging words in this book, or learning anything new and different about language.

I agree with you about the improbability of the last scene.

]]> By: What I Saw and How I Lied « Yabg’s Blog http://oneminutebookreviews.wordpress.com/2009/01/09/adultery-for-third-graders-a-review-of-%e2%80%98what-i-saw-and-how-i-lied%e2%80%99-winner-of-the-2008-national-book-award-for-young-people%e2%80%99s-literature/#comment-7152 Sat, 17 Jan 2009 18:05:22 +0000 http://oneminutebookreviews.wordpress.com/?p=5822#comment-7152 [...] Dobrez & Lynn Rutan, Christian Science Monitor’s “Books”, The Reading Zone, One Minute Book Reviews,  Awards & Lists: National Book Award for Young Peoples’ Literature [...]

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