PositiveThe New York Times Book Review... a lively and bewitching recounting of a particularly ripe period in television and cultural history ... The genesis of [Sesame Street], which celebrated its 50th anniversary on air last year, has been the subject of several insider accounts, but Kamp finds new threads, especially about the socially and politically connected co-creators, Lloyd Morrisett and Joan Ganz Cooney ... Beyond grasping the (now terrifyingly astute) media literacy of little kids, these shows and their creators, Kamp says, gave us a huge sense of possibility. In the grimmest times, Sunny Days is a reminder of just how valuable that is.
Nell Scovall
PositiveThe New York Times Book ReviewThe bar for contemporary women-in-comedy books was set in 2011 with Tina Fey’s Bossypants, which managed advice that was both hilarious and accurate ... Scovell’s lessons are less jokey and more emotionally bare; she even confesses a few things that our feminist foremothers have taught us to keep buttoned up — like the lines that she crossed, too — which feels freeing. Overall, though, Just the Funny Parts functions best not when Scovell is recounting some backstage encounter ... For aspiring writers, the book has just enough practical advice on story pitches and script editing to qualify as a how-to ... Just as she is getting to that last stage, however, she meets [Sheryl] Sandberg, whose spirit infuses this book ... and for the reader, that emotional shift comes not a moment too soon, as one thing that’s sacrificed in her litany of miscreants is a larger sense of why she loves or even wants a career in entertainment anymore.
