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 Review #4026723 |
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| (3.5)| Hello Cinn  , my name is Just an Ordinary Boo! and I am part of a reviewing celebration for SAJ reviewing activity.This review is made as a gesture of friendship and community, please accept it as such.  The Title: I got the allusion to ‘Through the Looking glass …'. Effective title and it was sufficient to hook me into the read – well done!  The Beginning: Actually I felt the beginning did nothing to add to the tale – the entire hide-n-seek situation as justification for avoiding physical actions in the baby-sitting could as easily have been done in one or two sentences to show her in a state of exhaustion. But, perhaps it served to give emotional setting? I reserve judgement, I shan’t say it didn’t work – just that it did not seem to make for a smooth transition into what was the ‘meat’ of the story. The Setting: It helps to have the setting done once already, in the original tale. So less spade work for that part relating to Alice’s adventures is fine. But one could have had a bit more of the Emerson home than the overstuffed couch! The Characters: Julie is appealing, energetic, demanding but affectionate, easy to imagine and like. Debbie is not quite so easy to picture and it would help character appeal to have her want to baby-sit for motives other than the merely mercenary. The focus on earning enough for a car was a underlined a bit heavily. Coming from a part of the world where we look after younger siblings and cousins for free, it seemed so anyway! The Descriptions: To be proscribed from using adverbs would be like withholding pepper when dishing food. But, in both cases, indiscriminate sprinkling masks some delicate appreciation of other elements. I also felt there was too much giggling in there. Little girls, even grown women do indulge in this irritating behaviour, but it is not interesting to be told of it again and again. The Story as a Whole: One can relate to the desperate innovations made because of lack of familiarity with the tale requested. Children, on the other hand, want each detail as per expected format! It was genius to produce an acceptable tale that titillated and kept the child engaged. Just one tiny niggle - after getting into the story, the parts about falling into a rabbit hole, the bottle labeled ‘Drink me’, surely that was part of the first book? ‘Alice in Wonderland’? The pause to reflect and wonder – the break in smooth reading – is avoided with the use a title similar to what Julie calls it in the end, Alice in Waterland. What I liked: ! I enjoy fan fiction and stories inspired by or written as a tribute. Even otherwise, this was enjoyable because this is how children are, demanding regarding what they deem important, with easily diverted imagination and attention, when managed without obvious force, and with an insatiable appetite for stories! In the end, I enjoyed the direction of the relation. Suggestions: Remember these are made, not from any lofty pinnacle of ability or erudition, but more as a hiccup seen in the smooth enjoyment of a concerned reader -: There wasn’t anything that really needs highlighting, just a couple of tiny disturbances of concentration, stutters in the reading:-" Julie popped up behind the couch like a jack-in-the-box, eyes sparkling with excitement." Am I splitting hairs if I say that it would be more apt to say ‘popped up from behind the couch’? " Debbie tried and failed to stifle her groan " Again, at my favourite Olympic sport – Hair-Splitting Gymnastic Routine! Would it alter the meaning in any way to omit the ‘tried’ part? Can she not just ‘fail’, the attempt being taken for granted? Any comments are only an individual opinion. Please sip it all, allow what you find sweet to take the edge off what you think is sour.  May your words go on to shine!  Effort brings colour to Life ** Image ID #1534744 Unavailable **  My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" .
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You responded to this review 10/14/2014 @ 4:27am EDT