Welcome to Lizard Motel: Children, Stories, and the Mystery of Making Things Up by Barbara Feinberg

From the Publisher

Unsettled by the fact that her twelve-year-old son, an ardent reader, hated most of the books assigned to him in school, Barbara Feinberg set out to discover just what kids are reading these days. Much to her dismay, she found that novels about abandonment, kidnapping, abuse, and more have become standard fare in many middle school classrooms.

Pre-adolescents, these novels seem to suggest, ought to be confronted in fiction with “real life problems” straight on, with no magical dimension and limited imaginative scope. In fact, the child characters in these books often must face their stark circumstances nearly alone, without adult shelter. You have only yourself, these novels seem to say. Adults cannot help you; they are often the source of your troubles.

Weaving literary analysis with memoir, told in a playful, elegiacal style, Welcome to Lizard Motel sets its inquiry into books and stories in the context of an unfolding narrative of family life. And as the narrative takes on a novel-like velocity of its own, stories become the lens through which Feinberg reflects on our own notions of childhood—both observed and remembered, our culture’s rendering of childhood, and the surprising disconnect between the two.

Publishers Weekly

When her son's seventh-grade teacher said a "good book should make you cry," Feinberg started to wonder. After she noticed her son's reluctance to read school-assigned novels-Newbery Award-winning books like Creech's Walk Two Moons or Paterson's Bridge to Terabithia-she read them herself and discovered the "problem novel," a "subgenre of the realistic adolescent novel," which often features a youngster facing horrible difficulties-incest, domestic abuse, rape, death or disease of parents, etc.-without the aid of any sympathetic adult, without "recourse to fantasy." Educators push these parables, Feinberg says, believing children need to abandon fantasy and learn to "cope" with reality. This campaign starts quite young, as Feinberg found when her daughter invited her to her second grade's "publishing party." Listening to these children reading their "memoirs"-as if eulogizing their own childhoods-Feinberg began to question the philosophy behind the Calkins writing workshop system used in so many schools. Why do children need experts to tell them how to write about the world, she wondered? Yes, it's good to learn to observe the world closely, but Calkins's "orchestration of the poetic moment" struck Feinberg as too didactic. Rarely can teachers reject the curriculum's "problem novels," nor can they refuse the Calkins system. But Feinberg, who's spent years working with children in a creativity workshop she designed, has the independence and experience to raise important questions. Her critique, delivered in the palatable form of a chatty parenting memoir, should stir some much-needed controversy, especially among "progressive" educators. (Aug.) Forecast: The implications of this small book are quite large. Parents will want to read it, as will writers, publishers and educators. A blurb from Mary Pipher could help sales. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Susie Wilde - Children's Literature

Feinberg, the creator of Story Shop, a writing and arts program, was led to write this memoir by parenting two children. When she noticed her twelve-year-old son, usually an enthusiastic reader, sitting "stiffly" over an assigned middle school book and her questioning prompted him to disparage the literature, she discovered a grim variety of problem novels chosen bent on teaching life's hard realities with "traumatic themes" and with " a relentless earnestness." Her memoir mixes parenting, philosophy, psychology, reviewing and poetry in a readable book that makes you think. Feinberg gives convincing arguments based on keen observations at home, in her workshops, as well as her research and experiences with the literature. Feinberg's observations about how children create offers the most powerful arguments against a literature that force-feeds reality. She describes calming herself and her daughter with a student story about a mystical, mysterious hotel run by a lizard and contrasts with a joyless writing session she observed in her daughter's classroom. This book is strong and insightful, but not perfect. The author sometimes indulges herself in extraneous, distracting details. And while she is adamant that children find their own way in creating and reading stories, she's often invasive in asking her children's opinions. "Leave me alone!" her son cries. Reading, I felt as annoyed as he did. 2004, Beacon, Ages Adult.

School Library Journal

This is a sweet memoir by the mother of a 12-year-old boy who began to wonder why her son didn't want to read what he was assigned for school. These were critically lauded books like Katherine Paterson's Bridge to Terabithia and Sharon Creech's Chasing Redbird. So, with some time off during the summer, she decided to read some of them and do some research into the current "philosophy" of children's books. Feinberg started with Terabithia and discovered that although it is beautifully written, the conclusion left her with a feeling of bleakness and despair. Then a children's librarian gave her a copy of Children's Literature in the Elementary School, which says that "Realistic fiction helps children enlarge their frames of reference while seeing the world from another perspective." At first, Feinberg spends a lot of time deconstructing this concept, but she soon digresses to subjects like the after-school program she runs called Story Shop, and her daughter's ear surgery. The digressions are entertaining, and are eventually connected to the theme of children's literature, but in a wordy and roundabout way. This is a very personal story, more exploration than analysis, and though it's a quick read, it leaves readers wanting more substance.-Marlyn K. Beebe, City of Long Beach Public Library, CA Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

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