Welcome to Lizard Motel: Protecting the Imaginative Lives of Children

by Barbara Feinberg

Welcome to Lizard Motel is one of the most surprising books about reading and writing to come along in years. Not only does this rich and wonderfully readable memoir explore the world of children and stories, it also asks us to look at how our children are growing up. Barbara Feinberg suggests that we have lost touch with the organic unfolding of childhood, with that mysterious time when making things up helps deepen a child's understanding of the world. This book will reacquaint readers with the special nature of children's imaginations and why they need to be protected and fostered.

Genres: Nonfiction, Books About Books, Memoir

216 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 2004

Reviews

[Becky · Rating 1 out of 5]

While Feinberg makes good points about the seemingly high number of "problem books" in YA literature, and the need for giving the right child the right book at the right time, her argument continually circles back to what books she might have liked or needed when she was a child -- which is irrelevant. She's done her growing up already.

Yes, there are a lot of "problem" books these days. It's a trend, and one that will eventually give way to another trend. That new trend will have its censors as well. While I agree with Feinberg in her criticism of some highly-regarded (indeed, Newbery award-winning) books, her criticism rings hollow when one considers that her own book pulls the exact same sort of emotional-whammy trick as the YA books she's criticizing. I'm talking, of course, about how the focus of her book changes very abruptly, from YA literature and her children's storytelling class -- to her daughter's illness.

Feinberg's daughter's illness seems to have been the real impetus for writing a book. I think the book should have focused more on that, rather than having been packaged as a book about imagination and YA literature.

An unfocused, neurotic mishmash.

[Kris Patrick · Rating 2 out of 5]

She spends the first eighty pages eloquently trashing contemporary children's lit, mostly the "problem novel" ... Including my beloved Walk Two Moons :( ... Then she moves on to her next target- Columbia Teachers College. I admit that she has challenged my thinking... And maybe I don't understand Writing Workshop as well as I thought but I stand in Calkins' defense.

[Annalee · Rating 2 out of 5]

Her thesis is something I can agree with: traumatically realistic [hyperrealistic?] novels for young people—problem novels—had an unduly high place in young adult fiction for a long time.

However, I strongly disliked the writing style, the presumption that she knew what a wide variety of others thought (the poor librarian in particular), and the paragraphs upon paragraphs of sensory description of her surroundings as she considered these problem novels. To me it was not only verbose, but also a peculiar format to put forth what could have been a lively, clear, linear argument.

I did love the Lizard Motel vignette and wish it hadn’t come so late in the book. It could have served her purpose so much more had it come early on.

I did not enjoy reading this book but it did give me a deeper perspective on the value and place of various genres children’s literature, so perhaps it’s valuable even so.

[Payal · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a simple story written by a writer about a part of her journey as a mother. The author has tried to express views on hyper realistic YA fiction but doesn’t quite conclude it. Honestly, that doesn’t bother me. It’s an exploration of her understanding of children and the literature they read. I would recommend the book if you want something that gives you a view into children’s literature. If you are looking for a well-researched text this isn’t the book.

[Olivia Taylor · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don’t normally read nonfiction on purpose, but this book is delightful, insightful, and beautifully written. I just wish that the author had developed her ideas on children’s literature a bit more—maybe outlined a plan for combating this, or at least some suggestions. But that’s partially because I’m projecting my own somewhat more ideas about literature onto the book.

[Candace · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a different book. It is a non-fiction book in the form of a story. I liked that. A lot. There are still some things I didn't quite understand or comprehend or agree with, but it gave me a lot of things to think about and agree with.

[Emily · Rating 2 out of 5]

It is a book about--if it can be said to be about anything--the author's problem with modern children's/YA literature. It makes her kids depressed and she doesn't like it. I'm somewhat sympathetic to the book's basic premise. I think there is a lot of YA literature that deals extremely well with dark, serious issues; but about 10 or 15 years ago, there was such a glut of superficial YA problem novels. On the other hand, there is something about the arguments that makes me very argumentative; it's a memoir, not an academic study of children's literature, but it feels as if it's drawing sweeping conclusions that it shouldn't be drawing. And on the gripping hand, the details of her kid's ear surgery just aren't that interesting from a kidlit-scholarship perspective.

She tries to tie literature gripes and personal life together into a meditation on children's imaginations and their experiences of danger, death, and abandonment, and what we can do to respect them as children and not impose our own morality upon them, but I don't think it works all that well.

Abandoning the personal for the moment, Feinberg has a bunch of arguments that I mostly agree with:
-Children's literature, the kind that wins awards, is pretty bleak and depressing. You've got war, death, depression, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, and so on, and so forth.
-And it's not the fun kind of bleak, either. There are fun books about orphans and depressing books about orphans; you know what I'm talking about.
-Generally, the highest value in these books is survival. There's no sense of a possibility of the world opening up, of a hope for something better.
-My children's books used to be nice. Whatever happened to that?

This is where she loses me, because I don't entirely agree with her on which books are sad but good and which are pointlessly bleak; she hates Bridge to Terabithia, which I read when pretty young and which definitely falls into the 'sad but good' category for me. She approaches these books as a mother, I approach them as a librarian (and, almost, as a teenager); if they're good, they're good. Should kids be denied good sad books because they need to be protected?

But Feinberg wins me back a little later when she finally acknowledges that she isn't the sole arbitratory of Depressing Problem Novels:



"To read about the anarchic world of The Pigman, at twelve (unthinkable at eight) would have been more than I could handle... How about at fifteen? By then a lot had changed...Every time I destroyed something, I felt free...It might have been fascinating to read, if it had come at the right time."


She goes on to nail the real problem: that the curriculum often emphasizes one thing only, "understanding" a book, interpreting it. You aren't given space to hate books, and if you hate them, it's because you don't understand them well enough. It was a revolutionary feeling, sometime in the middle of high school, to begin to allow myself to hate books without feeling stupid for it, to let myself be outraged and angry.

"But to find such a bookas part of assigned reading, accompanied with worksheets, and tests, and grades, to be asked to chart the book's symbolism and fill in right answers seems deadly. The book...now constitutes "Official Knowledge.""


Ultimately, I think, you can't have your cake and eat it too. Children are children, not miniature literary scholars; they will like adolescent power fantasies where lots of things blow up, or books wherein they go to magical worlds and ride telepathic ponies. And that's fine. It's what they want. And some of them want to read really dark-but-not-really-dark stories where they die beautifully of tuberculosis and then everybody's really sad that they weren't nicer while the deceased was alive. And there are some children who have a lot of literary sophistication and can deal with a book like "Octavian Nothing"; and there are some children who need books that can empathize with the terrible bits of their lives; and I think that adults have to be very careful about imposing a One True Way of reading onto children.

But I don't think that Feinberg is really grappling with the complexity of that.

[Cynthia · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book starts out with a very good and interesting premise- YA books might be too depressing and are not tapping into the real way young people see the world- they are more hopeful and use fantasy more to deal with trauma and are therefore more resilient, happy people than the protagonists they are "forced" to read about. This is why I gave it 2 stars and not just 1.

Anything positive about this book ends there. It lacks any kind of cohesion and degrades into a self-important rant about literally every adult this woman comes into contact with. I can't believe YA authors, educators, librarians, child psychologists, and doctors don't know who Barbara Feinberg is because, at least according to her, she has everything figured out and has all the right answers concerning children- even though her experience with them is limited to her own 2 kids and a group of 10 kids who voluntarily signed up for an after school story club. She seems to think all kids are like this- super eager and willing to read and teachers keep "forcing" them to read these horrible books when they would really love to read Great Expectations (not making that up- she mentions it) HA! She never mentions video games once in this book- that's the reality from which she comes.

It's much easier to pop into your kid's class on one isolated day and tear apart what you see than it is to get in the trenches and actually try to do what you're critiquing. Why doesn't she write a YA book that engages today's kids and fulfills all her criteria for what such a book would be like? Why doesn't she get teacher-certified and try teaching a room full of kids who are 12 years old but can't read yet, have truly hard lives, and don't want to read at all. Her "evidence" in this book is talking to her son's friends at the pool and them saying, "Oh I hated that book" and then her reading them herself and deciding she didn't like them either.

I realized half-way through this book that the author found someone to publish her personal journal. She went back and added some examples, but it's essentially an affluent, stay-at-home mom's journal that extolls an unrealistic idealization of childhood while complaining about everyone who interacts with children.

[Jamie · Rating 2 out of 5]

This seemed so promising. But there were SO many problems with this book. Number one, and this is sort of silly but it was incredibly distracting, is that it's written in the present tense. And she's not very good at it - present tense can feel immediate, and important... but this is a memoir, so I feel like by definition it should be in past-tense (says the girl who loves Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius). Maybe she's just not a good enough writer to pull it off.

Beyond that, I feel ultimately like Feinberg came up with an idea for two half-books, but neither idea was good enough (or sellable enough) to make into a full book so she ended up combining the two. The first half of the book is about the distaste she has for the "problem novels" her son is reading. Sounds good enough; it was in fact the reason I read this book. But then she starts talking about her seven-year-old daughter, and the writing specialist that has come into her classroom, and how she feels like children shouldn't be asked to revise their writing at that age. Which is also a valid argument. But then - but then! - we discover that Feinberg runs a program called Story Shop, in which she teaches young kids to create stories, without any sorts of rules or restrictions. Seems a little fishy, eh? That her style obviously runs counterintuitive to the style of the teachers... but, she says, that's not the point at all.

And then halfway through her daughter gets sick. And it turns into a totally different sort of story, a predictable one, about caring for a kid who's sick. One in which her daughter (who is 7, remember) speaks in language that no seven-year-old ever would. It has no place in the story that she's started out with whatsoever, and then all of a sudden she pulls it back into the problem books and her son. Whiplash, I tell you.

This is the longest review I've ever written, for a book that I didn't even like that much... but it was so infuriating. Feinberg comes off as petulant, and somehow lazy, and rude. She openly talks about going to a library and eating (even though it's not allowed) and when she's tired she gets under the table and takes a nap (!?!?!?!). Maybe if her voice wasn't so annoying I'd like this book better. Probably not.

[Raine Mclellan · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Lizard Motel, a memoir by Barbara Feinberg is an intrigueing story taken from Mrs. Feinberg's life about her family, and herself as she explores the world of children. The book talks about her views on childhood, how her childhood compared to her children's was so much more sheltered and magical. How her children are being exposed to the harshness of reality, especially through literature. Mrs Feinberg continues to question herself throughout the book why children are exposed to cruelty and reality so quickly now a day? Why must childhood end so fast? How do children think? What do children think about? And especially why do her children who love to read, hate the books they are assigned in school?
The theme of this story, (well I'm not really sure if it can be counted as a theme) is children I think. I believe this because the story center around children, their views, ideas, thinking, words, and actions. How the schools, the adults are forcing them to stop being children and face reality. But is doing this the right thing for children? Anyway all this brings us back to the idea of children. I believe children to be the recurring theme of this memoir, by a loving and caring mother of two.
The novel was good, but confusing at times. It didn't always stay in place. You would often find yourself reading about the past, and confusing it with the present and doing the opposite as well. The story climax's when Mrs. Feinberg and her spouse are told their daughter needs surgery, a rather serious, complicated, and dangerous one. As a parent this is really hard to hear, they felt sleepless, and worried excessively. What if the surgery went wrong? What if she was scared for life with the trauma? Would she be able to handle staring the idea of her death right in the face?
I beleive this book is not necessarily right for teenagers, I feel its made for loving parents and adults, but if a teen truly wants to read it who am I to stop them?

[Jean · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an irritating book from many angles. She's a mom who is concerned that her son (who loves Mel Brooks, so is obviously into COMEDY) doesn't like to read the "problem" novels he is assigned in school. So she starts to read some. In the public library. With her lunch. Then she lays on the floor and takes a nap. How can I take this woman seriously?

I appreciated the latter part of the book when she describes her daughter's surgery and how frightened the child was. But she never really made the connection that protecting kids from things they fear (like "problems" that turn up in novels for young people) isn't doing them any favors.

She obviously loves her kids, comes from an upper-middle class sensibility, is a good writer but sometimes leans to the pretentious side, is artistic, and is having a hard time letting her kids become their own person. I also appreciate that she is an interested parent - we need more of those! But she needs to realize that not everyone sees the world through the same lens that she does, or that her son does. He wants to laugh, so he's not going to like assigned reading that has sadness in it. I understand. I like to laugh, too. BUT there is sadness in the world and sooner or later kids figure that out and then they get angry because their parents never prepared them for it. So I have mixed feelings about this book.

[Tracy · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really appreciate the author's examination of young adult literature's "issue" trend. Well-meaning people often hit kids over the head with "reality" instead of letting kids come to their own conclusions -- not to mention that kids can handle some dark truths, but how that information is presented is crucial.

I disagree with the reviewers who say the author was trying to impose her childhood wishes on today's kids. She said that kids need to have the space and time to enjoy reading and telling stories in their own way, and besides that, books don't need to be heavy to be worthwhile or important. I also disagree with comment that her son just preferred comedy to serious stories. She made it clear that heavy topics that weren't well presented (in contrast to A Tree Grows in Brooklyn or The Diary of Anne Frank), left her kids upset and nervous.

I had that experience as a reader. I still love A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, which was sometimes a tough read, but a rewarding one. But I also remember being jarred by "Beat the Turtle Drum", where the main character finally gets her wish of a horse and then falls out of a tree and dies. End of story. I got so much from the former, but only a nervous stomach from the latter.

I appreciate her reminder that telling stories is an important part of our lives, and of children's lives.

[Applehillcottage · Rating 4 out of 5]

Readers seem to be all over the place with reviews of this book. I'm thinking it depends on which side of the fence they sit. Regardless of which side your on, Feinberg is an engaging, thought-provoking writer. Reading this book was like sitting down with a quirky, sometimes eccentric friend, who sometimes just goes off on a tangent. But it's always an interesting tangent, and that's why you like hanging out with your friend.

I come down solidly on the side of the author, so perhaps that's why I enjoyed it. Childhood, fantasy, and making things up just isn't what it used to be. Our children are guarded, watched over, lessoned, and helicoptered. Feinberg bemoans the "problem novel" that we make the kids read. The Newberys are full of them; and even though she admits some of them are beautifully written, she wonders about gloominess and how much reality is too much for a child's mind.

I loved this quote : "How is it that through a metaphor you can glimpse the deepest and scariest reality, and not feel despair?" All those problem novels -- with their grittiness and sad realities -- have forgotten the art of metaphor.

Just how much can our children's minds take? It's a timely question...

[Frances · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really like this book 4.5 stars. Primarily, I got the book because I have young grandchildren and I thought it would give me insight and helpful dialogue which I think it will.
Secondary, altho I am app same age as the author, I still remember being forced to read horrible stories which for some reason were revisited in multiple years as they were considered classic. The authors impression of people and how she sees them react to the world was very entertaining. I wondered about the people who later see themselves in the book and wonder if they laugh (the two that stand out is the little girl that whispers "we are your orphans" and the writer who refuses to look out the window at the crows).
The book was published 13 years ago; I hope her children grew into strong adults as the outcome of Claire's ear tumor was still in progress.

[Beverly · Rating 2 out of 5]

Really putrid as a memoir of the author's childhood and her experiences with reading and the imagination. Even worse in her description of her current life with her 2 children and their reading (and writing experiences). However, in her exploration of current YA and children's 'problem novels' she makes some valid points and offers a thoughtful analysis of how childrens' imaginations and perceptions differ from the concept of childhood offered by the authors in question. She does have a tendency to set up straw dogs in her arguments, however. THe whole argument may be dated anyway, because I see more YA fantasies and comic novels coming out rather than realistic problem novels.

[Phoebe · Rating 2 out of 5]

I forgot I'd already read portions of this book, and it made me just as tired as the first time I read it! The author is essentially commenting on the nature of YA literature today, and it's the same argument we've been reading so much about in recent months, flames refanned by the article in the Wall Street Journal. It's certainly important to protect children and maintain their innocence, but not all children have a magical childhood--not all children are as lucky as Feinberg's kids. A one-sided argument, one particular perspective that tends to discount the significance of the gritty books. Although I agree with her about Sharon Creech!

[Ilana]

I've wondered the same thing, why children, when childhood is so short, and you have so many years as an adult to be faced with the grim realities of life, must be faced with these heavy themes. I feel like reading "On My Honor", about two boys told not to go near the river, disobey, and one drowns, round about fifth grade, scarred me for life.

I mean, you can't shelter kids from hard things, I was twelve when 9/11 took place. But why make it harder by assigning these novels? This a was basically the premise of the memoir (not 9/11, the books children are made to read in school).

I don't remember much about the content though.

[Jon · Rating 4 out of 5]

The problem with kids and YA books, as Feinberg sees it, is that much of adolescent literature places trauma, catastrophe, and negative emotions in the context of a solid, thought-heavy adult world. This is a world that rings untrue to the wavy, imagination-heavy world of the adolescent psyche.

Feinberg's warning is that we need not use literature to shake kids out of the innocent magic and joy of childhood; they need to go that journey at their own pace and with care.

[M.L. · Rating 3 out of 5]

I almost gave up on the book when the author went on and on about her nap on the public library floor, but I kept going because I was so interested in the topic of YA literature. I would have liked a little more information on YA books, and a little less memoir, but I was glad I kept going. Her family story became more interesting, and the writing was really nice.

[Sophie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This a great book. The author discusses many points about childhood. She talkds about imagination and what kids should/shouldn't know when they are young. The main discussion is about books kids are forced to read in schools. Loved it!

[K.M. Mara · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book and read it in one sitting. I liked her ideas about social commentary vs. story-telling, as well as her way of unfolding and intertwining her own story. Clever, intelligent writing. I'd love to read more.
K.M. del Mara
www.kmdelmara.com

[Lesley · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a great book on childhood and imagination. A must read for anyone who is interested in children or remembers being one!

[Danielle · Rating 3 out of 5]

i picked this up because I wanted to know what drives a mother to go up against her school systems mandatory reading list for her 12 and 9 year old children.

[Stephanie · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book tried to combine a memoir with a discussion on how children's literature has changed. I was interested in both parts of the book, but it took too long to weave them together.

[Laura-marie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book years ago, loved it, bought a copy for a friend. I like the way the speaker talks abt kids and parenthood. Books, illness.

[Charlotte · Rating 1 out of 5]

Whiny load of crap from someone with limited knowledge of middle schoolers.