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October 25, 2012 by Travis Jonker

One Star Review Guess Who? (#2)

October 25, 2012 by Travis Jonker   4 comments

Can you guess the classic children’s book by its scathing one-star review on GoodReads or Amazon?

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I can’t understand how it won the John Newberry Medal. The witches were plastic and seemed to serve little purpose; the bad guy, a concept embodied in a shadow, had no motivation […] and the father, who seems to have no backbone and no sense of decency when it comes to saving his son. I’m not about to recommend it to anyone young or old. Unless it’s too ask that person to help me understand what the big deal is.

Click here for the answer.

One Star Review Guess Who? (#1)

 

Filed under: One Star Review

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About Travis Jonker

Travis Jonker is an elementary school librarian in Michigan. He writes reviews (and the occasional article or two) for School Library Journal and is a member of the 2014 Caldecott committee. You can email Travis at scopenotes@gmail.com, or follow him on Twitter: @100scopenotes.

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Amy says

    October 25, 2012 at 9:10 am

    I can’t understand how this reviewer can’t get the spelling of “Newbery” correct. 😉

  2. PragmaticMom says

    October 25, 2012 at 11:03 am

    Do you think that person was serious? Still, this is a fun trivia post!!

  3. Owen Gray says

    October 25, 2012 at 7:04 pm

    “It was a dark and stormy night…” when this reviewer missed the bus on a classic title. Perhaps he should tesser to a world where books are all easy to understand.
    So yeah, I’m guessing it was Madeline L’Engle’s “A Wrinkle in Time” that received this singular star?

    • Travis says

      October 25, 2012 at 7:20 pm

      Right you are!

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