Reception
Initial critical reception for the book was mostly positive, with the Living Books adaptation being particularly praised. Later critical reviews expressed concern over the media effects of the book, with David Wray stating in Literacy: Major Themes in Education that much of the effects were "incongruent to the story". Matt Jackson of the Children's Literature Association commented that the Living Book software's features gave off the impression that "passivity is bad" questioned the product's packaging phrasing of "Children don't just read them. They live them.", in that it inferred that books were inferior to CD-Roms.
Jackson also criticized the book's usage of stereotypes, such as Arthur's teacher Mr. Ratburn being a "stereotypical male teacher—a mean disciplinarian, a student's worst fear". Ann Trousdale also criticized the stereotyping of Ratburn, writing that he "dominates and oppresses his students" and almost a caricature.
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Read more about this topic: Arthur's Teacher Trouble
Famous quotes containing the word reception:
“Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody’s face but their own; which is the chief reason for that kind of reception it meets in the world, and that so very few are offended with it.”
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“But in the reception of metaphysical formula, all depends, as regards their actual and ulterior result, on the pre-existent qualities of that soil of human nature into which they fall—the company they find already present there, on their admission into the house of thought.”
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