Comments on: Emotion vs. Intellect

By: Emotion vs. intellect « Rachel Hartman

Emotion vs. intellect « Rachel Hartman — Mon, 15 Oct 2012 22:58:26 +0000

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By: Sara Ralph

Sara Ralph — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 17:24:22 +0000

Very interesting stuff! Since I CANNOT wait for Ruins to come out, I am guessing that my reading appeal lies primarily with landscape, although I do enjoy suspenseful turn-pager type novels such as The False Prince (waiting until March for the sequel will be brutal) and Haddix’s Found series. It is very, very hard to separate yourself from your personal tastes (appeals) and evaluate a book objectively based on the Newbery criteria. I tend to love books, and what is my response when pressed for the reason why? Because I just do! I do appreciate this blog making me aware of nonfiction – when I read nonfiction, I tend to read books written for adults, and when I buy non-fiction as a school librarian, I’m looking for things that have kid appeal or which meet a specific curricular need/reading level. I loved Amelia Lost, a book I would not have read if it weren’t for this blog.

By: Mark Flowers

Mark Flowers — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 21:57:25 +0000

@ Carol E – of course! We all want it all. And Jonathan did point out that it’s not “helpful to think of any book as having only one of these four appeals”–Nina even said that she found an emotional component to BLACK HOLE. I think it’s just helpful to remember that not all authors are trying for the same combination of these appeals–some authors are highly motivated by expressing ideas, others by creating characters, etc. And it is worth our while to figure out what the author is trying to create, even if we don’t personal like the end product.

By: Carol E

Carol E — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 21:07:54 +0000

But I want characters and ideas. Even in non-fiction. I’m the reader that needs to attach somewhere to pull me through. If I don’t gain ideas or learn something I despair. BUT– I find the learning about characters absolutely riveting and the human condition in all it’s variety both emotional and entellectually appealing. I’m reading YA this year, but I find the ability to look at yourself and your preferences and somehow rise above to evaluate the book in hand is the essential job of award committees. And absolutely impossible at the same time. This is the conundrum that never fails to amuse and fascinate me.

By: Mark Flowers

Mark Flowers — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 20:16:35 +0000

@Sondy – I think that while the puzzle metaphor is useful, we may be getting a little off track if we just stick to intellectual=puzzle. I see NO CRYSTAL STAIR as fitting Jonathan’s schema of “intellect” because it is primarily focused on giving the reader ideas to think about rather than characters to care about. In fact, that’s how I would sum up the whole intellect v. emotion issue: characters v. ideas (and then we might say adrenaline roughly correlates with plot and landscape very roughly with prose style). That’s what WE’VE GOT A JOB strikes Jonathan (and myself) as an “emotion” read–because it spends so much time with its characters, and reads the story of the events through these people’s reactions to it, rather than something like BLACK HOLE, which is simply explaining ideas, with no characters in sight.

By: Jonathan Hunt

Jonathan Hunt — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 17:51:49 +0000

Sandy: Very interesting article!

Sondy: See, I don’t think that “How would the girls pull this off?” moves beyond the typical what-happens-next in any story so I can’t even see THE SUMMER OF THE GYPSY MOTHS as one of those mid-spectrum titles that appeals to both emotion and intellect (which of course says absolutely nothing about whether or not it is distinguished). PALACE OF STONE I could put down as one of those, however, both because of the plot and some of the philosophical discussion that Miri engages in at the university.

I don’t think it’s helpful to think of any book as having only one of these four appeals. I think SPLENDORS AND GLOOMS and THE ONE AND ONLY IVAN, for example, have a similar amount of intellectual appeal, but they offer it in different ways and in tandem with different appeals.

With SPLENDORS AND GLOOMS you have the elements of a puzzle-like plot: multiple narrative threads woven with suspense. That suspense is diluted by the landscape and the emotions (both the investment in the characters and the development of a gothic horror mood). If this book were shorter by 100 pages then I’d say that it would also have strong adrenaline appeal.

THE ONE AND ONLY IVAN, on the other hand, has adrenaline appeal with a spare form that allows for a fast pace, but not much landscape appeal (in contrast to SPLENDORS AND GLOOMS). It also has a strong emotional pull, almost manipulatively so. For me, the intellectual pull of the novel comes not from a puzzle-like plot, but the strong themes which, to me, push this toward literary fiction (I know I just admitted that I don’t see as a viable juvenile genre, but here is an accessible instance of it). Perhaps not everybody will see these themes as stimulating intellectually, and I have overstated the intellectual appeal.

NO CRYSTAL STAIR may be another one where I have overstated the intellectual appeal, both because of the themes and the puzzle pieces, but it clearly does not have the same kind of emotional involvement with the main characters in the way the the others we have mentioned in this thread.

My point here is that a book’s appeal is quite complex, and we risk oversimplifying things if we adhere to closely to any single model or literary theory. I would still encourage readers to take a shot at A BLACK HOLE IS *NOT* A HOLE and ALL THE RIGHT STUFF to acquaint themselves with the far end of the spectrum. With that as a reference point, I think you may redefine where books fall along your own personal emotional/intellectual spectrum.

By: Sondy

Sondy — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 16:04:39 +0000

I find this interesting, because I already realized there are two strong sides to me. My first Master’s degree was in Math; my second in Library Science. I love puzzles, and I love books that make me think. But that’s not necessarily the side of my mind that engages when I read children’s books. Or necessarily the part I want engaged. It seems like a bonus when it can do both. Of course, THE THIEF, by Megan Whalen Turner is a prime example of a sort of puzzle on top of the plot. This year’s CODE NAME VERITY is like that, but I think too old for the Newbery.

I do think SUMMER OF THE GYPSY MOTHS had some puzzle elements — How would the girls pull this off? And PALACE OF STONE weaves a lot of threads together, which takes some intellectual work. But I actually don’t think of NO CRYSTAL STAIR as having many “puzzle” elements. Maybe because I thought it a little disjointed? The pieces didn’t really come together for me.

My comment’s a little disjointed itself. But this is an interesting way to think about the books.

By: Sandy D.

Sandy D. — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 16:02:17 +0000

On a related note, did you all hear the story on npr about attention and reading Jane Austen yesterday?

http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2012/10/09/162401053/a-lively-mind-your-brain-on-jane-austen

Different kinds of reading can basically engage more or less of your brain.

By: Eric

Eric — Tue, 09 Oct 2012 21:24:15 +0000

I look forward to seeing this discussion of emotion and intellect play out as we continue to discuss potential newbery titles. I just read EACH KINDNESS today and i couldn’t help thinking about it within this framework, and it was great to see a book solidly on the emotion side the spectrum could hit me so hard regardless of the level of cynicism I attempted to bring to it.

By: Monica Edinger

Monica Edinger — Tue, 09 Oct 2012 19:22:22 +0000

This discussion makes me think of Louise Rosenblatt, a scholar who espouses a particular literary response theory involving a continuum with a purely aesthetic response at one and and a purely efferent one (e.g. informational) on the other. She argued that readers danced around sometimes responding both ways, sometimes more one way and less the other.