Negative Positive
Title: Be warned: Louis Darling's illustrations have been dumped
Review: I just received new copies of Beverly Cleary's books for my library. I realized that the dust jackets were different when I ordered them; I don't like it, but I've learned to live with that. Then I opened Ramona the Pest and realized that they've replaced Louis Darling's marvelous illustrations, with those wild, exuberant, inky pictures of a Ramona who practically leaps from the pages, with drab, dreary, bland, anodyne, pallid and uninteresting things. What an awful thing to do to wonderful books. (And I know all the arguments about "Oh, children today are *different*, and they must have new new new pictures that look like everything else they've ever seen because otherwise they might not read the books..." Bilge.)The story deserves five stars. I've removed four of them for crimes against illustration.
Is the review positive or negative? 