So Many Books... - Teeth-gnasher of the Day

11:16 pm - Teeth-gnasher of the Day

A new review blog was recommended by a highly-respected advocate of children's lit, and I went over to check it out happily, especially as the subject matter was likely to be very useful to steepholm and me. Review is of a children's series set in ancient Rome. This sentence was the one that got both our teeth going:

During the course of seventeen novels and a number of short stories aimed at older children and young adults (her four main characters range in age from eight to eleven at the start of the series and are in their mid-teens by the end of it), she has succeeded where even a number of authors of historical fiction for adults fail by creating a fully realised and entirely believable ancient Rome.

A writer of children's books succeeding where *even* some authors for adults fail? Inconceivable.

This one had me gnashing and scratching my head in a dizzying manner:

The portrayal of Christianity is also very well done; in the earlier novels it is almost incidental as only one of the main characters (and his family) is Christian (and even then, Jewish Christian), while everyone else is unashamedly (not to mention realistically) Pagan.

Where to start? It's very well done because - it's 'realistic'? (Yeah, we could hardly expect that in historicals for children.) And they're 'unashamedly Pagan'? I know my sense of humour is a bit weird, but I had a mental vision of them being like Adam and Eve unashamedly nekkid. Hand them a fig-leaf of Christianity, someone, please!

There's more, but it's not worth the effort, is it?