Feinberg, Barbara

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FEINBERG, Barbara

PERSONAL: Married; children: Two.

ADDRESSES: Home—Westchester County, NY. Agent—c/o Ellen Levine, Trident Media GROUP, LLC., 41 Madison Avenue, 36th Fl., New York, NY 10010.

CAREER: Story Shop (children's writing and arts program), Westchester County, NY, creator and operator. MacDowell Colony fellow.

WRITINGS:

Welcome to Lizard Motel: Children, Stories, and theMystery of Making Things Up, Beacon Press (Boston, MA), 2004.

SIDELIGHTS: Barbara Feinberg is a writer and children's art and writing teacher who decided to examine the young adult (YA) novels being taught in grade school. Her decision came after her son, who had always loved to read, complained about the novels he was assigned to read in seventh grade. After reading a few of the typical YA novels herself, Feinberg set out to write Welcome to Lizard Motel: Children, Stories, and the Mystery of Making Things Up. Part critique of modern popular YA novels, part memoir, and part a reflection on the nature of childhood experience Welcome to Lizard Motel addresses the modern trend to teach young children about reading and writing using "problem novels." These books typically feature tabloid-like themes about depression, suicide, murder, alcoholism, incest, and other traumatic experiences.

In her book, Feinberg recounts many of her and her children's personal experiences with reading. She relates how one teacher told her son, "A good book should make you cry." She also tells about her younger child, a daughter, whose teacher uses the immensely popular Lucy Calkins' Writing Project approach, which Feinberg sees as too didactic and controlling, often misunderstanding the role of imagination in childhood experience. As for the novels her children must read, Feinberg finds that their gritty realism also disregards childhood fantasies and offers little comfort, hope, or humor to young readers. She also argues that many YA problem novels do not portray an authentic childhood perspective, but are instead laden with adult agendas. Such books basically tell children that they are on their own when dealing with life's challenges.

"Supporters of the genre [YA problem novels] argue that this new reality reflects daily life, helping young people to cope with their problems," wrote Marilyn Gardner in the Christian Science Monitor. Gardner added, "Feinberg does not oppose realism, but argues that it needs richer context." In a review for Triangle. com Susie Wilde called the book "strong and insightful, but not perfect." She added, "The author sometimes indulges herself in extraneous, distracting details." Noting that the final part of the book focuses on the author's young daughter as she deals with surgery for a recurring but benign ear tumor, Stefan Beck commented in a review in the New Criterion that "Feinberg dodges the temptation to be dark—or to exploit her family's difficulty. Instead she offers her story as proof that humor and imagination are the thing." New York Times Book Review contributor Laura Miller commented, "Only a reader as attuned to realism as Feinberg could have puzzled out so nuanced a defense of imagination in children's lives." A Publishers Weekly reviewer concluded that Feinberg's critique "should stir some much-needed controversy, especially among 'progressive' educators."