As the Scott O’Dell committee winds up its considerations (look for an announcement after New Year’s but before ALA), I find myself seeing and pondering my favorite historical-fiction nemesis: the info dump.

The following example is NOT from one of the contenders but from Katherine Neville’s The Eight, an enormously entertaining pile of balderdash that anticipated The DaVinci Code by fifteen years. Sue me, I’m rereading it. But here you go:

…”The Pyrenees,’ the abbess said.

“Indeed,” replied the czarina. “The Magic Mountains, they called them. You know that these same mountains were once the home of the most mystical cult that has been known since the birth of Christ. The Celtic peoples came from there, and were driven northward to settle in Brittany and, at last, in the British Isles. Merlin the Magician came from these mountains, and also the secret cult we know today as Druids.”

“This much I did not know,” said the abbess.

I’ll BET, Reverend Mother, more than you knew and less than you cared. Oh, the czarinasplaining! Authors, please don’t let your characters do this.

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