steepholm

My gf was the regular children's book reviewer for The Age for many years, and she tells me that once she became a professional reviewer she would look back in horror at the some of the hatchet jobs she did in her early days - not at all because she changed her opinions on the books, but because in her early reviews she was so busy 'showing off' about how elegantly she could demolish someone else's work that she didn't realize that reviews actually matter - that they're more than a conduit for the reviewer's wit and malice. The fake-political rhetoric of 'giving just ONE CHILD a VOICE' is absolutely misplaced here, and in fact I think this is at the heart of what's wrong with both Owen's reviews (see my other comment above on the Space Boy review): reviews are a gatekeeping mechanism which mediate between a book and its potential readers, not a method of giving a VOICE to oppressed readers. In this case, sarcasm and volatility isn't the mark of the Authentic Voice Of Kidhood; it's the mark of a new reviewer, who - if my gf's experience is anything to go by - is going, as she gains more experience, to start regretting being let down by her editors, who could have guided her to write better reviews if they weren't objectifying her as the Heroic Voice of Oppressed Child Readers.