Marcy A. Sheiner

Doesn't Do the Artist Justice, Mar 4 2004

Maybe it's because I'd just read "Uncle Andy's"-- another children's book about a famous artist--that I so disliked this one. Where the former is light and hip and fun, the latter is heavy-handed, preachy and uninspiring. The tone is far too serious for the subject, and for the age range of its intended audience. The illustrations, while interesting to adults, don't seem vibrant enough to catch a child's attention.

Finally, there's a minor event in the story that could, and should have been omitted or changed to something else: in order to get the child narrator alone with his uncle Romare, the author uses the literary device of having Aunt Nettie receive a phone call that an old aunt… Read more

Write a Happy Ending, Jan 20 2004

I've stopped short of five stars only because I take issue with Kingston's efforts to find happy resolutions to terible events. The stories that emerge in her veterans' writing workshops tend, not surprisingly, to be painful, and to revive painful memories. Rather than accept that some situations can never turn out positively, Kingston tells her students to keep on writing until they can "write a happy ending." Where none exists, she invents. Maybe Kingston, at 62, feels she's faced enough pain and wants to focus exclusively on finding peace now. But the dishonesty of a forced happy ending can leave the reader feeling betrayed by an otherwise honest writer.

Still, Kingston… Read more

I Just Wasted My Money, I'm Gonna Be Ill, Dec 3 2002

... This essay of Woolf's, were it printed on normal-sized paper with normal sized margins would probably take up half the space it does--which is already a mere 28 pages. That might, MIGHT be all right if the substance of the piece was as mind-boggling as the promo claims--but there is very little of use here, certainly nothing memorable. I'm one of those who've not only read the work of Virginia Woolf, but also a lot of what's been written about her (a cottage industry in itself), so I'm likely to normally cut her a lot of slack. I don't know who rakes in the profits now, but they'll probably keep rummaging through the poor woman's files, filling in the blanks and publishing pieces likely… Read more