A quick note on reviewing

I review books (mainly children’s and YA, sometimes ‘proper grown-up’) for a number of venues. I am also chock-full of potential conflicts of interest – as a writer; as someone who’s been published by or is published by Irish and UK publishers; as someone who knows an awful lot of children’s and YA writers in Ireland, the UK, the US and beyond; as a friend to editors and other employees in different Irish publishing houses; as an editor myself.

If I’ve been asked to specifically cover a book – e.g. for Inis magazine (Children’s Books Ireland) or radio (e.g. Arena) – these factors come into play. It is best not to put yourself in the position of reviewing something when you’ll be seeing the author (or anyone else involved in its publication) – you run the risk of being too gushing or too honest or too harsh, regardless of how you feel about the title in question.

With the books I choose to talk about, though – here on my blog or for the Irish Times kidlit/YA column – there’s a limited amount of time in the day, so I select books I like. Unless it’s a title I’ve actually worked on in some capacity, everything else is up for grabs – whether I know/like/am apathetic towards the author/editor/agent/publisher/publicist/sales reps or not.

I’m a fairly selfish reviewer. I’m not interested in tearing down a particular author or title (it means having to actually read a book you dislike) or praising something out of obligation. There still isn’t nearly enough coverage of children’s and YA fiction, particularly in print, so if I’m choosing a title to devote column inches to, it needs to earn it – by being something I’ve enjoyed and loved and was impressed by and want to honestly and credibly recommend to other people. Anything else, at that moment, has to be white noise.