Whenever I speak at conferences, or even at informal gatherings of people from the children’s book world, I can always count on one question: “Why are Kirkus’s reviews anonymous?” Even if it’s left unspoken, there is always an implied follow-up: “Is it to free you up to be so nasty?” I suppose that with Kirkus’s 80-plus-year reputation for gloves-off reviewing, it was natural that I, an editor at Kirkus, be asked to comment in this space about anonymity in book reviewing. It’s my understanding that the biggest reason Kirkus’s reviews are anonymous is that when founder Virginia Kirkus began her service, she wrote all the reviews herself. A canny businesswoman (you had to be, for your startup to survive the Depression), she evidently had a good enough sense of brand management to want to maintain an authoritative, unified voice, even after she began to hire freelancers. To be honest, anonymity does make it easier to write and publish a negative review than if it were signed—I’m not going to deny that, though editorially we work to avoid out-and-out nastiness. In our very clubby industry, it’s not unusual for reviewers to find themselves seated next to authors at an event, and nothing throws cold water on a party atmosphere like introducing yourself as the person who just summed up an author’s book as “sluggish and overwrought.” Perhaps, as one of my colleagues (and countless authors) has suggested, reviewers should have the cojones to proudly byline negative reviews, but that’s a hard standard to enforce in a connected society. Recent events have demonstrated that the stakes can be higher than just party awkwardness. When YA author Kathleen Hale went beyond grousing about an online negative review and actually stalked its writer last October, the community of book reviewers suddenly got uneasy. While measuring any direct response to the Hale incident is probably impossible, it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that some reviewers have soft-pedaled their criticism since—or simply decided not to comment at all. And that is a bad thing. In the film Bambi, Thumper quotes his father’s advice: “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say nothing at all.” While that is a solid foundation for social success, it’s a terrible watchword for a book reviewer. The reviewer’s responsibility is primarily to a book’s potential purchasers and readers. If the person who is about to spend several hours of precious free time with a new book and/or plunk down anywhere from $15.99 on up for its purchase doesn’t deserve to know that it’s “sluggish and overwrought,” then who does? I would argue that anonymity is just as important for honest, positive reviews as for negative ones. Anonymous reviewers get to avoid those awkward moments when meeting a panned author or illustrator, that’s true—but they don’t get to claim the warm, fuzzy feelings when meeting an author whose book they’ve fawned over, either. Since Kirkus’s reviews are anonymous and my name as children’s and teen editor is the only one on the masthead, I am often thanked for the positive ones. More and more, I feel uneasy with such gratitude. I try to deflect: “It was a great book.” I do my best not to say, “You’re welcome.” Thumper’s father no doubt also told his son, “If someone thanks you, say, ‘You’re welcome.’ ” No one is “welcome” to a positive review, though—the book needs to earn it. And each new book needs to earn it on its own merits, free of influence from an earlier rave’s leftover warm feelings. With anonymity, a reviewer is free to grapple directly with a book’s strengths and defects without regard to relationship or personality. Readers of anonymous reviews know they are getting an honest opinion—and so do a book’s creators. Vicky Smith is children’s and teen editor at Kirkus Reviews. When she’s not editing anonymous book reviews in her home office in Maine, she can be found cycling the coast, tending her bees, and reading, of course.