I have had very mixed feelings about this review. Initially I was obviously disappointed that someone else didn’t love my little monster as much as I, but then I got to thinking. It is totally unrealistic to think that everyone will be as adoring of Rumble. I suspect there is an expectation that every single child’s book should ‘fit’ the usual perceived format. This, I feel, drastically restricts not only the author, but the young reader, whose imagination has not yet become a distant memory and all writers/authors play in their imagination all the time anyway. How else would we have entire worlds populated with imaginary friends? I purposely chose a black and white world for Rumble to highlight how he perceived the ‘upper’ world with its brightness and colour.
So after pondering this review for some weeks I have decided not to take it to heart but see it as a single person’s perception and no more.
I will view it as part of my ‘growing’ process along my writing journey…do I need to garner a thick skin?
How do you response to negative reviews?