A review by grubstlodger
Boys and Girls Forever: Children's Classics from Cinderella to Harry Potter by Alison Lurie

2.0

Strange book this. It says that it has a central idea, that children’s authors are closer to children but doesn’t really have much to argue for that. To make up for the lack of solid argumentation for it’s case it throws tons of quotes and citations for what are essentially opinions, as if having an endnote to an opinion makes it correct. I am of the the opinion that when you write opinions you should show yourself opinionated, not hide it as fact. In such it seemed to me to be a very American piece of ‘scholarship’ that carries on the 17/18th Century idea that all valid opinions are stated in previous texts. There was also such an American bias that sometimes it was hard to read.