I would never have read Ng Ziqin's Every School a Good School had I not been given it as a birthday present, but I'm happy to say I'm glad I did as I thoroughly enjoyed it. I've always had a soft spot for lit for kids and I suppose as a self-described YA novel that's what Ms Ng's tale of her two likable protagonists who swop schools as a sort of sociological experiment is.
It's a bit heavy on the exposition and might have usefully lost eighty pages or so in editing, but the novel is engagingly bright, breezy and basically good-hearted. It's possessed of a naive charm that's really quite touching but does manage to say some perspicacious things about the education system here and, from my perspective as a teacher, is quite revealing in terms of giving insights into what some, possibly most, kids think about schools here.
Actually I was a little bit surprised as to how many stereotypes the writer seems to buy into whilst intelligently questioning the whole notion of stereotyping, but I suppose that just goes to show the success of schools here in getting folks to accept their mythologies. On the other hand, I suppose the fact that kids have no choice but to live out the myths, since that's what they're stuck with, is something I need to more readily recognise.
Anyway, if a young writer as talented as Ng Ziqin is a product of the system I suppose that gives me some room to be a little bit cheerful about being a part of it myself.
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