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3.38 AVERAGE
3.38 AVERAGE
This book has its moments, but as a whole, it really misses the mark for me.
The multitude of characters feel excessive and just bog down the story with goofy filler. The book is ultimately too short to accommodate such a large ensemble. I understand that 9-12 year olds are the target audience, but I think you can give them a little bit more credit and trust they can follow a bit more of a complex character arc. Just about every character's challenge or flaw was overcome by a sudden jolt of inspiration, leaving the titular goat with the most compelling character growth. Which, I guess is fair play, since they named the book after it?
The tone also didn't seem to match some of the language choices. While literary fiction and humour aren't mutually exclusive terms, their combination here falls flat. There were many times throughout the book where I felt as though this probably should have been a YA+ book, it may have helped smooth out some of the incongruities I was experiencing.
I also feel compelled to mention the awkward 9/11 reference. It didn't add anything significant to the story or any of the character development at all. Rather, it felt like an awkward cultural reference that was used to make up some sort of quota of NYC references, once the well known landmarks and museums were rattled off. It made for a really strange tonal shift in the story and was cast aside rather nonchalantly thereafter.
This story would have probably been better off as an animated short, complete with compulsory, Yakkity Yak soundtrack.
The multitude of characters feel excessive and just bog down the story with goofy filler. The book is ultimately too short to accommodate such a large ensemble. I understand that 9-12 year olds are the target audience, but I think you can give them a little bit more credit and trust they can follow a bit more of a complex character arc. Just about every character's challenge or flaw was overcome by a sudden jolt of inspiration, leaving the titular goat with the most compelling character growth. Which, I guess is fair play, since they named the book after it?
The tone also didn't seem to match some of the language choices. While literary fiction and humour aren't mutually exclusive terms, their combination here falls flat. There were many times throughout the book where I felt as though this probably should have been a YA+ book, it may have helped smooth out some of the incongruities I was experiencing.
I also feel compelled to mention the awkward 9/11 reference. It didn't add anything significant to the story or any of the character development at all. Rather, it felt like an awkward cultural reference that was used to make up some sort of quota of NYC references, once the well known landmarks and museums were rattled off. It made for a really strange tonal shift in the story and was cast aside rather nonchalantly thereafter.
This story would have probably been better off as an animated short, complete with compulsory, Yakkity Yak soundtrack.
Quirky, sweet, slim read. About a mountain goat that lives on top of a building in Manhattan.
Love letter to New York.
Love letter to New York.
This book started out like every other young reader novel, but with
* hints at social anxiety,
*phobias,
* brief 9/11 mentions in a respectful and realistic way,
*blind people who can do everything that seeing people can do,
*a dog named cat,
*a kid named kid,
*a cat named fleabag,
*A man struggling to recover from a stroke who likes to poke fun at his wife.
*His wife who loves him dearly.
* and a goat on a roof that may or may not be a reincarnation of someones dad, this book was a surprise that fell together at the end beautifully. I only picked this up because the idea of a book about a goat living on a NYC rooftop was intriguing. What I got was a story about how people can help boost each other up to achieve what they didn't think they ever could. To say this book was good would be an understatement. I like reading kids books because they always seem to reach you in a place adult novels can't.
* hints at social anxiety,
*phobias,
* brief 9/11 mentions in a respectful and realistic way,
*blind people who can do everything that seeing people can do,
*a dog named cat,
*a kid named kid,
*a cat named fleabag,
*A man struggling to recover from a stroke who likes to poke fun at his wife.
*His wife who loves him dearly.
* and a goat on a roof that may or may not be a reincarnation of someones dad, this book was a surprise that fell together at the end beautifully. I only picked this up because the idea of a book about a goat living on a NYC rooftop was intriguing. What I got was a story about how people can help boost each other up to achieve what they didn't think they ever could. To say this book was good would be an understatement. I like reading kids books because they always seem to reach you in a place adult novels can't.
What a quirky little story. It follows the adventures of a mountain goat living on an apartment building by Central Park. There is a diverse cast of characters, almost too many for such a short story for middle grade. I liked the concept and enjoyed the uniqueness of the idea but I am not sure if my middle schoolers will appreciate it as much. 6th grade and up.
Charming, but it has to be one of the weirdest books I ever read that wasn't written by James Joyce
Cute premise, but with so few pages there was too many characters. It also just rather ended, without resolution to many of the characters, which was disappointing.
Not a bad story, and I appreciated the varied characters overall, even with my complaints.
Not a bad story, and I appreciated the varied characters overall, even with my complaints.
This book did not start off strong for me, but it got better. I'm also not sure about the target age-range for this book (it is a YA novel, but my kids' school puts it in the lower school library, which seems a little young for some of the complex vocabulary and class concepts - but maybe I'm wrong).
I immediately disliked the nameless main character (called "kid") - this identity trick seemed weak to me. Is the kid really just seen as a kid? By whom? The parents go by first names, so this seemed even weirder in that context. Is this supposed to be generic? The kid does have a gender (female), so I wasn't really sure what the name game was all about. I also hate, hate, hate repeated / non-dialogue incomplete sentences, and this book had no shortage of them. Last, I felt like some of the vocabularly was a bit above your average 4th grader. I'm not sure this is a problem per se (there were not inappropriate scenes or words), it was more just that the author seemed to be really writing for adults in these moments. For example, I'm not sure your average 4th grader is dialed into gentrification or the meaning of bonhomie.
Another thing that led me to question the intended audience was the post-9/11 intersections with this book. One of the characters was orphaned on 9/11 and this event comes up throughout the book. We absolutely should talk about this event with our children, so that's not my concern - rather, in the post-9/11 context, I found myself wondering what the goat was supposed to represent.
On the face of it, this is a pretty cute story about being an outsider in a new city, chasing a mythical creature, meeting friends along the way, seeing how others live and cope with adversity. It was a sweet story and a sweet idea. The book had a lovely ending. It definitely picked up as it went along, although I really had trouble getting into it at first.
I immediately disliked the nameless main character (called "kid") - this identity trick seemed weak to me. Is the kid really just seen as a kid? By whom? The parents go by first names, so this seemed even weirder in that context. Is this supposed to be generic? The kid does have a gender (female), so I wasn't really sure what the name game was all about. I also hate, hate, hate repeated / non-dialogue incomplete sentences, and this book had no shortage of them. Last, I felt like some of the vocabularly was a bit above your average 4th grader. I'm not sure this is a problem per se (there were not inappropriate scenes or words), it was more just that the author seemed to be really writing for adults in these moments. For example, I'm not sure your average 4th grader is dialed into gentrification or the meaning of bonhomie.
Another thing that led me to question the intended audience was the post-9/11 intersections with this book. One of the characters was orphaned on 9/11 and this event comes up throughout the book. We absolutely should talk about this event with our children, so that's not my concern - rather, in the post-9/11 context, I found myself wondering what the goat was supposed to represent.
On the face of it, this is a pretty cute story about being an outsider in a new city, chasing a mythical creature, meeting friends along the way, seeing how others live and cope with adversity. It was a sweet story and a sweet idea. The book had a lovely ending. It definitely picked up as it went along, although I really had trouble getting into it at first.
My video review: https://youtu.be/inCf9n7Q2JY
I won The Goat in a Goodreads giveaway, and am quite happy I did. It took me about half-way into the book to realise I've heard of it before. One of my professors mentioned that her friend had written a book about a goat living on top of a building in New York city. Wow you think with how niche that is I would have picked up on it earlier.
The Goat was a quick entertaining children's book with a surprising amount of real life issues. Issues such as: dealing with extreme shyness/social anxiety (something I've struggled with for most of my life), health problems, age, the loss of parents who died in 9/11, and more. I wans't expecting a childrens book to touch on these topics, but it was nice that it did. For that I would say this book can be enjoyed by both adults and children.
The only minor negative I had was with the ending. It wasn't bad per say, but it wasn't great either. I felt like there could have been more of a conclusion for a certain city-living ruminant animal.
I won The Goat in a Goodreads giveaway, and am quite happy I did. It took me about half-way into the book to realise I've heard of it before. One of my professors mentioned that her friend had written a book about a goat living on top of a building in New York city. Wow you think with how niche that is I would have picked up on it earlier.
The Goat was a quick entertaining children's book with a surprising amount of real life issues. Issues such as: dealing with extreme shyness/social anxiety (something I've struggled with for most of my life), health problems, age, the loss of parents who died in 9/11, and more. I wans't expecting a childrens book to touch on these topics, but it was nice that it did. For that I would say this book can be enjoyed by both adults and children.
The only minor negative I had was with the ending. It wasn't bad per say, but it wasn't great either. I felt like there could have been more of a conclusion for a certain city-living ruminant animal.
This is one of those titles that adults love and I will probably never get a student to read. So many characters in such a short book means we get a glimpse of someone who never figures in the book. And that ending? Oy. Great writing, but I just can't see my younger middle schoolers reading it.
Charming, but it has to be one of the weirdest books I ever read that wasn't written by James Joyce