User:LEvalyn/Getting information from book reviews

This book received a positive reception... and this one... and this one...

When writing book articles, reviews are go-to sources to demonstrate the subject's notability. (I have another advice essay on how to find them). But once you've found them, what to do with them? In principle, reviews are meant to contain the information necessary to write a thorough and useful encyclopedia essay. Too often, however, reviews get cited to say things more like:

• The book received a positive reception. A starred review in Kirkus described it as "superb".
• The book received a positive reception. A starred review in Kirkus described it as "stunning".

The problem: one of those examples describes the picture book Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star, and the other describes the very serious historical novel Small Things like These. Even if both are "good books," they are good at very different things. Their encyclopedia articles should sound different!

What does "better" look like?

The simple way

The first step is to turn our attention away from the mere evaluation of good and bad. If we're just using a review in the reception section, look for the most specific subjective evaluation within the review -- the thing that would be applicable to the smallest possible number of other books. Instead of something generic like "suberb" or "stunning", use quotes or paraphrase to convey what the review commented on.

If I write something more like this, you can probably tell now which one is about Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star and which is about Small Things like These:

• Kirkus praised the "moral clarity" of the novel, saying it concisely presents a "web of complicity" that is "believably mundane and all the more chilling for it".
• Kirkus described it as a "superb outing from a fixed star twinkling in the children’s-literature firmament", praising the watercolour illustrations and the "dreamlike energy" of the narrative.

The thorough way

Remember that reviews don't have to go only in a reception section! Instead of using reviews as sources of praise (or criticism), use them to populate sections on style or themes.

The first step here is to break the review down into its constituent pieces of information, mentally "striking out" any bits of praise that don't have additional factual information:

• In Pinkney’s sumptuous elaboration of the familiar lullaby
• a chipmunk’s nighttime odyssey takes on the same epic scope as his Caldecott winning The Lion and the Mouse (2009).
• Seamlessly tweaking a later version of the multi-verse 1806 original with minor changes in wording and repeated insertions of the first two lines as a chorus,
• the illustrator follows a furry traveler—
• who is often posed as if in song—
• through verdant tangles of dandelions and other flowers, up a tree and into an empty robin’s nest. With a turn of the page, that nest is transformed into a small boat (and the chipmunk acquires a sailor suit) that sails into the starry sky. The adventure briefly takes on an anxious cast when a gust topples the tiny explorer into a pond of much larger fish and other creatures, but a swan glides to the rescue and gently wings its little passenger up to the smiling Moon. [all of this is the same "information" -- the plot of the book.]
• Rendering natural details with typical accuracy,
• Pinkney fills his intimate watercolor close-ups with rippling leaves and rhythmic shifts of color
• that simultaneously create a feeling of active, if dreamlike energy while echoing the poem’s quiet cadences.
• He intersperses wordless interludes, either single pictures or short sequences, to create a unified story line
• and finishes with a final view of the dreamer curled up (still in that sailor suit) on a bed of soft leaves and down.
• Just another superb outing from a fixed star twinkling in the children’s-literature firmament.

Once the review has been "broken down" into points of information, these points can be clustered and re-assembled into key takeaways. Typically I go straight to the re-assembly as follows: I copy each chunk of information as I encounter it in the review, and paste it next to a conceptual "buddy" in my notes document. At first, each new item usually stands alone, but eventually sentences and clauses will cluster around particular themes. Those are the themes our article should discuss.

This table shows how I would cluster the information above, and how I would translate it into Wikipedia form. Note that not everything on the left ends up making it to the right!

Statements from the review	Translation to Wikipedia form
Lullaby elaboration of the familiar lullaby tweaking a later version of the multi-verse 1806 original with minor changes in wording and repeated insertions of the first two lines as a chorus —who is often posed as if in song— He intersperses wordless interludes...to create a unified story line	Development / Background The book is based on the 1806 children's song Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star. Pinkney uses a later version of the lullaby, with some modifications. The first two lines are repeated throughout as a chorus, and some sections depict events without words.
Illustrations Rendering natural details with ... accuracy intimate watercolor close-ups rippling leaves and rhythmic shifts of color	Synopsis Pinkney illustrated the story in watercolour. The paintings are colourful, with realistic natural details.
Author reputation the same epic scope as his Caldecott winning The Lion and the Mouse (2009). Rendering natural details with typical accuracy Just another superb outing from a fixed star twinkling in the children’s-literature firmament.	Reception Kirkus praised it as representative of Pinkney's established reputation for high-quality illustrated children's books.
Plot summary follows a furry traveler...through verdant tangles of dandelions and other flowers, up a tree and into an empty robin’s nest. With a turn of the page, that nest is transformed into a small boat (and the chipmunk acquires a sailor suit) that sails into the starry sky. The adventure briefly takes on an anxious cast when a gust topples the tiny explorer into a pond of much larger fish and other creatures, but a swan glides to the rescue and gently wings its little passenger up to the smiling Moon. finishes with a final view of the dreamer curled up (still in that sailor suit) on a bed of soft leaves and down.	Synopsis The story is about a chipmunk who travels to the moon. It climbs a tree into an empty nest, which becomes a boat to sail the night sky. The boat is briefly overturned into a pond with alarming large creatures, but the chipmunk is rescued by a swan, who takes it to the moon. The final image shows the chipmunk asleep and dreaming.
Story "feel" a chipmunk’s nighttime odyssey takes on [an] epic scope a feeling of active, if dreamlike energy while echoing the poem’s quiet cadences	Style or Reception Kirkus describes the book's overall feeling as one of "active, if dreamlike energy".

A Kirkus review is short, so it may have only a little bit of information beyond the synopsis. But something it better than nothing, and if you repeat a similar process with other reviews you will rapidly find a thorough article coming together!