Big Question!
Someone left a helpful feedback comment pointing out the fact that the story begins "You should! You should!" and then suddenly we read "must," and "ought" out of the blue, and that they felt it may be a little inconsistent. I personally don't think this is a big problem, but it has caused me to wonder if the story could benefit from a change in the title.
So what do you think? What if this story was titled:
"You Should Must Ought"
"You Should, You Must, You Ought"
"Should Must Ought"
"You Should You Should"
By Ginny Tilby
...I still get a kick out of seeing my name there :)
Thoughts? Comments?
Personally, I prefer "You should, you should." Kids are more likely to understand a word like "should" than "ought." And the parallelism in the story will teach them that the other words are similar in meaning. I think it works better as is.
ReplyDeleteI see what you mean, but books are meant to teach vocabulary. Like you said once a kid reads the story they'll learn what it means right away, and the title can reaffirm what they learned every time they say "I want to read You Should You Must You Ought tonight!" Hmm... however, that does feel like a handful of words for a 4, 5 or 6 year old to say every time they want to talk about a book. Very good food for thought. Thanks, Spencer.
DeleteAlso, "You should, you should" is an actual quote in the story. No serious person would ever say "you should, must, ought!" It's just an awkward phrase.
DeleteI agree with Spencer. "You should, you should" is easier to say and feels better than the others when you say it. The others shape your mouth awkwardly when you speak them. Your first two encounters include "you should, you should" which is sufficient to establish the meaning of the title. The rest are similar enough in meaning, but maintain the rhymes. I believe a child will understand that. Stay with the original is my advice - you should, you should.
ReplyDeleteThe original seems to flow the best, no pauses or stops
ReplyDeleteYou should You should seems the best.
ReplyDeleteExcellent. Thanks everyone. I've decided. "You Should You Should" it is!!! It's final. My publisher needed to know asap and I let him know last night. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteAre you going to include a comma between the two "You Should"s? i.e. "You Should, You Should"? It helps visually and aurally to have this, I think. You might also think about an exclamation mark at the end: "You Should, You Should!" to spice it up a bit.
ReplyDeleteI was thinking of letting the editors decide that... I don't know if I have much say. But if I do, I was thinking of laying it it like this:
DeleteYOU SHOULD!
YOU SHOULD!
Or something like that. I agree, a break between of some sort might help.
Dear Ginny,
ReplyDeleteYour book is wonderful, and I like your recent revisions. Also, I like your ability to take constructive criticism. I think that you could make your title more interesting by getting Hippo into the title and emphasizing what he learns instead of what he is told. What about "Hippo Refuses to Conform" or "Hippo Finds His Own Path" or something like that.
Best wishes!
Janet
Dear Janet,
DeleteWhat a nice compliment. I won't lie, it took me a while to find courage to open myself up to people's opinions and advice to pretty much the whole world like this. But I'm SO glad I did. It's helped a ton, and I enjoy feeling supported as well.
"You should" is a phrase chosen as the title for very, very specific reasons. Both psychological and therapeutic. In fact I'm planning a blog post about it soon. The back story of my story. Ask anyone who has come out of therapy of any kind, and they'll most likely tell you they learned the danger of "shoulding on ourselves" and others, which is where the idea for my book was born. (you just got a sneak peek!) This book focuses more on not letting ourselves get "shoulded" on. I look forward to sharing that post with you. :)
Thanks Janet!