Talk:Maiden & Princess/GA1

GA review

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Reviewer: Isabelle Belato (talk · contribs) 02:32, 21 August 2021 (UTC)

Hi there Collin, I hope you don't mind if I review another Good Article nominee of yours! I love reading and writing about queer children's book, so I'd love to learn more about this one. During my review, I'll try to be as thorough as possible, and will list any issues I find that need fixing, as well as suggestions for improving it. Isabelle ^🔔 02:32, 21 August 2021 (UTC)

Oh hey again Isabelle! No worries at all, I'm pleased you're back for this review. It's not a terribly long article but it has just about everything I could find from reliable sources about the book. Hope you enjoy! —Collin^{t c} 02:40, 21 August 2021 (UTC)

Apologies for the delay, Collin! I'll try to do the initial review in the same manner as before, noting any issue or opportunity for improvemente in the order I see it in the article (as a side note, always makes me sad when I see an article about a picture book with great art, but we can't use them to illustrate the article, but oh well).

• Lede:
  • Not much to note here so far. My only recommendation, and this is outside of this article, so not really a necessity, would be to add an anchor to Lesbian Visibility Day on the List of LGBT awareness periods so it's easier for readers to get to that information.
    • Took me a sec to figure out how to do this but: done. —Collin^{t c} 23:52, 24 August 2021 (UTC)
• Plot:
  • I'd say this sentence The prince's sister, the princess could have "the princess" removed, since that can be inferred from being the prince's sister. I understand "the princess" is the title's character, but that moniker also shows up later, so should be fine.
    • Yeah I think this is self-evident enough. Done. —Collin^{t c} 23:54, 24 August 2021 (UTC)
  • Change the couple spend to the couple spends.
    • Done. —Collin^{t c} 23:54, 24 August 2021 (UTC)
• Writing and publication:
  • Since both "Bonnier Publishing USA" and "Little Bee Books" lead to the same article, I'd remove one of the wikilinks. It would also help with the amount of wikilinking in that sentence.
    • Good call, no reason to link it til there's an article. —Collin^{t c} 00:26, 25 August 2021 (UTC)
  • I think some sentences could use some rewording. For example: Prince & Knight author Daniel Haack worked with Isabel Galupo, a fellow alum of Ithaca College, to coauthor Maiden & Princess as a companion to Prince & Knight that existed within the same fictional universe to Daniel Haack, sole author of Prince & Knight, worked with Isabel Galupo, a fellow alum of Ithaca College, to coauthor Maiden & Princess. The book serves as a companion to Prince & Knight, both existing within the same fictional universe. I think reading in general could be improved somewhat with changes like that.
    • Great call! —Collin^{t c} 00:26, 25 August 2021 (UTC)
  • I noticed the first source says: Haack told HuffPost he was particularly excited about Maiden & Princess because he believes same-sex love between two women is even more underrepresented in children’s literature as compared to that between two men. This seems like an interesting bit of information to complement the text.
    • Added! —Collin^{t c} 00:26, 25 August 2021 (UTC)
  • Speaking of, I think it would be better if the section talking about how the book deals with homophobia (or lack thereof) and heteronormativity could possibly go in a "Major themes" section, instead of "Writing and publication". Since this could lead to a big rewrite, I'll leave to your discretion.
    • I think I agree with this in theory but would love more external references if possible. There haven't been really any published analyses of M&P that analyze its themes, so with only the authors' word about the themes they were thinking about as they were writing, I think that for now it makes sense to keep the framing as is and keep in in this writing/publication section. I'm definitely down to expand and break this section away in the future though if more critical analysis is published! —Collin^{t c}
  • If you do decide to create a new section, you might want to add some extra bits of information on the writing process, which is detailed by Galupo on source number four, question number three: 3. Which part of Maiden & Princess was your favorite to write? Why?
    • Didn't do the new section but added a new paragraph about the actual writing (versus conceptualizing) process. —Collin^{t c} 00:26, 25 August 2021 (UTC)
  • I think that an example of what kind of heteronormativity the maiden has to deal with might be interesting for the reader (I believe the source mentions having to wear a dress).
    • Added! —Collin^{t c} 00:26, 25 August 2021 (UTC)

For now, this will suffice. Feel free to leave your answers, questions or additions in the above bulleted list, or as a separate list of your own. Isabelle ^🔔 16:12, 24 August 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for taking the time to conduct this very thorough review Isabelle! I've touched on everything you mentioned and tried to incorporate your suggestions as best I could. Let me know if there's anything else you'd like to see! Kindly —Collin^{t c} 00:26, 25 August 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for going through my notes, Collin. I agree with you on the "Themes" section, though I still feel like the "Writing and publication" section could be split, either by moving the paragraph about the art to a new section (maybe "Illustration") or having the final paragraph have its own "Publication" section. Aside from that, I'm very happy with the writing.

Having read the "Reception" section, I think some things could be changed. The sentence Several news outlets have described Maiden & Princess as a lesbian fairy tale could be moved to the start of the paragraph, rewritten as such: [...] of fairy tale tropes and its illustrations, with several news outlets describing it as a lesbian fairy tale. I've also found a couple more reviews that you might want to include, one by The Booklist and another by The Horn Book Guide. Isabelle ^🔔 04:09, 25 August 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for the ping, Isabelle. I've added some subheadings to break up the writing section and incorporated both the Horn and Booklist reviews where there was useful information. Great find on those! Please let me know if you feel there's any more work I can do to build this page. Kindly —Collin^{t c} 00:59, 29 August 2021 (UTC)

Thanks Collin. I'd like you to know that I'll be passing this article as being of good quality, as it meets all the mains six criteria: it has a good prose and is easy to read, while following the manual of style; all sentences are sourced and all sources were verified through the process of reviewing; it talks about all the main aspects of the development of the book, including its illustrations, as well as covering plot and reception, and mentions related content (such as its companion book, Prince & Knight, without going too much into detail; it's neutral, as the text contains no weasel words and mentions all positive and negative aspects from reliable sources; and is illustrated by the book's cover.

Congratulations on and thanks for writing an article of great quality and about a subject I personally find to be very interesting and important!

I'd like just to make a final recommendation of changing the title of the section "Writing and publication" to either "Writing" or "Development", and move the sections "Illustration" and "Publication" to level 2 headers. Isabelle ^🔔 23:25, 29 August 2021 (UTC)