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good for them. It's common sense that if a word will get a child in trouble in school, it shouldn't be in books either. I doubt any teachers want a student telling them "go to hell"

Well, Anon, there's language I use in school and then there's the language I use "out of school," so to speak. I wouldn't want children's reading experiences to be limited to school settings. I wouldn't want them limited by the language appropriate in school settings, either. I'd like to see people respect children's ability to tell the difference between language they can use in school and the kind they can't. I am confident that they know the difference.

Anon2

Anon1,
It's probably just bait your casting, but I'll rise to it just a bit. The logical extension of your argument is that any language not used in polite adult conversation should also not be used in books for adults. Your line of argument is fouled.
IF

I went to read 6Boxes's commentary. I really don't like the Scholastic book fairs. In the twelve years since my kids started school I have seen them go from mediocre to worse. They push off the cheapest, cheesiest, tacky, vacuous schlock on an audience that--for once in a YEAR probably--has the money in pocket to buy a book.

There's huge social pressure to give your kid money for the bookfair, so parents who would otherwise never buy a book for their kids, cough up the ten bucks. And what can the kids buy with it? Remainders that have sold nowhere else, overpriced pencils, posters, and TV tie-ins.

At the same time that I hate it, though, I have to say--it makes money. 6Boxes laments that Scholastic has a monopoly on bookfairs, but maybe this is WHY they have a monopoly. They don't ever push the envelope. They keep everything mainstream to a fault. When everyone cries out for a book to be included, then they know it is time to add it to the bookfair, but not before.

Anon2

As a Canadian who is often baffled by America’s policy on things like censorship particularly when free speech is in the country’s constitution, I’ll say this, it is up to the individual to put up the good fight. Now your rights Americans then make certain it is upheld.

I agree Roger. The "homosexual content" bit was about the lamest thing ever.

Seconded. Is it "sexual content" if a kid has, well, parents? What about all those books about kids with a baby sibling on the way? Does anyone have a problem with those? I don't think so.

My middle grade novel was considered by Scholastic Book Club-- they wanted me to take out the word "butt," any reference to the girl's period, etc etc. I was mayyybe willing to take out "butt" but come on, getting your period is biology. You take the good, you take the bad, you take them both and there you have the Facts of Life. I see nothing controversial in the Facts of Life.

If you're tired of the science museum, why not try the Sci-Fi Museum in Seattle? Original manuscripts and blasters never lose their charm!

Wonder if his second try came from the Guide. (My take on this article and another one from Harpers here: http://medinger.wordpress.com/2009/08/30/in-the-classroom-teaching-reading/)

Ha! I also noticed that the kid in question showed fine discrimination in selecting his source material!

Choice as motivator, eh? Interesting approach. Now this one should perm your hair -- points as motivator -- published in today's NY Times book review: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/30/books/review/Straight-t.html?ref=books

This is new?? Atwell and Calkins were the big thing when I started out in education, nearly twenty years ago.

Your tag says this is stupid, and I don't understand why. How many of us have listened to Desert Island Discs? Do we think that because Illustrious Someone chooses Appalachian Spring over Eine Kleine Nacht Musik that Copeland's work is "better" than Mozart's? We listen to hear what someone we admire has to say about the music. I am reading the Battle of the Books to see what the Judges have to say. You are performance art. I think you did a fine job. I think Tim Wynne-Jones was splendid. I didn't think Scieszka was very impressive, but it might be that Trouble8 is just impossibly hard to do justice; TW-J certainly didn't make it sound any more appealing.

Of course it's about the judges. Isn't it ALWAYS? BoB just starts from that premise and runs with the idea. BoB should be interesting, thought-provoking and fun. It's stupid to insist it be anything else.

I *am* enjoying the comments from the judges but there are a couple of key distinctions between the BoB and "Desert Island Discs" (if I understand the latter properly). First, the BoB judges are handed two books to choose between, so we aren't learning anything about their actual favorites. Second, this arbitrariness is compounded by the fact that each judge narrows the field for the next round, meaning that Lois Lowry could easily be choosing between two books that say nothing at all to her.

I don't think it's always about the judges. The committees that select awards such as the Newbery have parameters, criteria, rules,and fifteen heads working together on the same books at the same time. The result--even when we don't like it--means something in a way that the BoB pick won't.

Isn't there some oft-quoted phrase about the race not always going to the swift, blah blah blah? Probably the rest of the quote undermines my argument, but I will make it anyway. The only thing that winning the BoB shows, is that the book one the BoB. I agree that it's going to be pretty silly if the winner's publisher puts it on a gold sticker and slaps the sticker on the book, but I don't expect they will. And I am so pi it is unsettling, but Roger, you aren't just performance art, you are a Role Model. The judges are showing us how they think about books. Cool.

Yes, the Newbery has rules that we hope keep people on the same page, but you cannot convince me that the committee that picked HIgher Power of Lucky would have picked Good Masters Sweet Ladies if they had all served their term one calendar year later. Or that the committee that picked Criss Cross would have picked Lucky. We don't get to see how Mary's devotion to non-fiction gets trumped by Sarah's love of historical fiction, but I'm sure it happens behind the closed doors. What matters is that some deserving book gets a prize. The criteria for the Newbery just helps with that.

Like the person you linked to earlier, you might ask what gets a book into the BoB to begin with.

Anon 11:44

Whoops.

I meant "book won the BoB." All the other errors are just typos, too, really.

Anon 11:44

Ecc 9:11, Anon 11:14! Sheesh.

Oh, um, yes, of course. Bible . . . I knew that.

Aren't I glad I'm
Anon 11:14

The best thing about the whole process is the commentary by Jonathan Hunt. He's becoming the Simon Cowell of children's literature.

apples and oranges...

Realize this marks me as Enormous Girl, but what actually kind of sticks in my craw about all this is it's a tiny bit mean.

If I write a novel and get nominated for the Newbery and then lose, I'm entitled to imagine that 49% of the committee was pulling for me and that I was a close second. But in BoB, I know for sure that some specific person I admire thinks my book is a little less good in some undefined and therefore total way than some other specific book, which I'm sure is a valuable object lesson in You're not supposed to please everybody, but I gotta tell you, I don't read the posts, they make me wince a little.

Jonathan (HB reviewer and judge for this year's BGHB awards) is great indeed and all the judges have had interesting things to say. I love that there's going to be an Octavian/Chains matchup--two white people writing about two black people in the Revolutionary War.

11:44, as i understand it the organizers chose sixteen (is that right) of the buzziest books of last year.

Enormous Girl, how do you deal with negative signed reviews? Getting one of those would probably hurt my pride more than the stated opinions of the BoB judges, who fall all over themselves about how tough it is choosing between two such great, great books--it's almost as if most of them flipped a coin, by the sound of it.

Who is the next judge and can we get him or her to please not use the phrase "apples and oranges?" At least it should be easy to avoid in this match up.

"11:44, as i understand it the organizers chose sixteen (is that right) of the buzziest books of last year."

I am imagining the Rube Goldberg buzzometer that they keep in the closet of the School Library Journal office.

Are there any that you would have put into the BoB that weren't there?

Anon 11:44

The novels the Horn Book chose for its best of the year list included The London Eye Mystery, Forever Rose and Last of the High Kings in addition to BoB contenders Kingdom of the Waves, Hunger Games, Graveyard Book, Forever Rose and Nation. Among our nonfiction choices (which included We Are the Ship and The Lincolns) we also had Christo and Jeanne-Claude, The Way We Work, Our White House and what was really my favorite book last year, Pale Male. We gave positive reviews to all of the BoB choices but obviously liked some better than others.

Another BoB contender on your best of the year list was none other than WAYS TO LIVE FOREVER.

I found the Fanfare list -- there are only NINE fiction titles picked as best books of 2008 and one of them is indeed Ways to Live Forever -- which is the contender of the first match, against Octavian nothing II.

Yeah, Ways to Live Forever slipped my mind in the recount. Nothing personal.

Dear Roger,

I love you.

Anonymous

Stop, Jon! You're embarrassing me.

I can't believe you want to be identified with Gallant! You're a "Your Own Pages" all the way.

Another Anonymous

Goofus and Gallant always makes me think of childhood trips to the dentist office -- reading Highlights while waiting to meet my doom.

Gallant may have been the "better" boy, but don't you think he also got beat up more on the playground?

Barbara Kerley

I do, and I was. And I totally blame Jon.

I'll meet you by the monkeybars right after school.

Of course, when runescape gold comes to pot, you can have too much of runescape money.

Yeah, I've been wondering too. In fact, I've wondered for several years now about the disconnect between the romantic pirate image and the modern day criminals. Well, I guess we'll have to wait and see. Maybe Long John Silver's will change to Red Nose Ruben's, the place of the jolly clown... Oh, no -- clowns can be scary.

HIGH WIND IN JAMAICA !!! Obviously a major source of all good will toward pirates - and a great book.

I've always found pirate children's books a bit paradoxical. I once reviewed a non-fiction "real life pirates" book for SLJ. The books were made for grades 3-6 and although they did not glorify the pirates, I couldn't help pointing out in my review that they did not dwell on the fact that these pirates were criminals and murderers...I get the Pirates of the Caribbean-like appeal of pirate books,and 'talk like a pirate day,' I really do, but regardless of whether they're Long John Silver or today's modern pirates, there's no getting around the fact that they were/are criminals.

New research suggests that the free-wheeling, anti-imperialist ethos of the 18th century Atlantic pirates was critically important in the development of American democratic ideals. (The book "Pirate Utopias" by Peter Wilson covers this territory nicely.) Atlantic pirate ships were staffed with escapees from the horrible British Navy.

In the world of anti-globalization activists -- anti-WTO protesters, for instance -- these Somali pirate attacks have a completely different meaning than that construed by the mainstream media. There are a lot of people cheering these pirates on, worldwide. Of course no-one wants to see sailors killed -- but given that these are some of the poorest people in the world, who the international community -- West, East, Middle Eastern, African -- has completely failed -- living in a stateless region of the world -- well -- there is MEANING here that it's important not to gloss over with the simple words "criminal". Of course they're criminals. Of course I wish the world was fairer, and Somalia hadn't been a pawn in the Cold War tussle between the U.S. and the Soviet Union for decades -- a country pumped full of foreign weapons --

The U.S. is complicit in the destruction of Somali society. I made friends with a Somali refugee last year in my master's program. To hear him describe the U.S.'s role in Somalia since World War II -- you would understand why Somali individuals would not perceive an American Flagged Vessel to represent "Good Guys".

Piracy is complicated. It's the flipside of Capitalist Imperialism writ large. It's a real shame that this sort of debate is absent from children's literature, don't ya think? Other than "The Streets Are Free" by Kurusa, published by Annick Press, there's VERY little anti-establishment pro-power-to-the-people lit for kids. Maybe the pro-pirate books are in fact catering to this very gap in the market.

"From the Halls of Montezuma,
To the shores of Tripoli" --

Why is it that children's literature deals so weakly and ineptly with Thomas Jefferson's war on the "Barbary Pirates" -- the early 19th century analogue to today's Somali rash of robberies on the high seas?

Jefferson believed the the U.S. Marines were entitled to make peace way over by Tripoli on the coast of Libya, in order to secure American shipping lanes... Everything that goes around comes around, evidently. I'm certainly interested to see what the children are taught about all this Somali stuff. Certainly they don't learn much about the Barbary Pirates episode. I haven't seen Barbary Pirates in any picture books, for sure.

Mermaids love pirates.

Truthfully, any trend that's reached it's highest pitch and is over is ok by me. Vampires are you listening?

Sorry for getting all humourlessly political in yesterday's posts. Here's another angle on pirates. "Captain Slaughterboard Drops Anchor" by Mervyn Peake (recently in and then out of print via Candlewick) was written in 1939 or so. The hilarious subtext is that the pirate ship is home to a cast of homosexual men (including denizens such as Peter Poop who has a wine-cork for a nose).

Could it be that the "Jolly Pirate" in children's literature is yet another cipher/disguise for the Gay Man (otherwise undepictable)? If so, any real-world pirate episodes will have no impact on Jolly Pirates since they share no common subtextual references.

Remember that in Treasure Island all of the pirates are, conspicuously, idiots, murderers, and drunks. The exception, at least to the idiot part, is Long John Silver. And though Stevenson does let Silver slip away in the end -- and lets us enjoy the fact, even -- he never lets us forget that Silver’s a criminal and a murderer, too:

A gentle slope ran up from the beach to the entrance of the cave. At the top, the squire met us. To me he was cordial and kind, saying nothing of my escapade either in the way of blame or praise. At Silver's polite salute he somewhat flushed.
"John Silver," he said, "you're a prodigious villain and imposter — a monstrous imposter, sir. I am told I am not to prosecute you. Well, then, I will not. But the dead men, sir, hang about your neck like mill-stones."
"Thank you kindly, sir," replied Long John, again saluting.

Is Silver the first truly amoral hero/antihero in children’s lit?

My Facebook account page is now filled with my friends patriotically posting links to articles about the Navy successfully shooting three Somali pirates and liberating the kidnapped American captain. All my friends are high-fiving each other online, and expressing pride in the Navy and in President Obama, etc.

I do not doubt the bravery of all concerned, and I'm glad the American captain is safe. But this insulting posture regarding these Somali pirates is just hypocritical. I thought Americans celebrated outrageous bravery in pursuit of the big score! Watch our movies! Watch our TV shows! These Somali pirates apparently have been trying not to kill their hostages, over the past couple of years of piracy, and they have made off with hundreds of millions of dollars in ransoms. Are you telling me that none of them have encountered American dramatic scripts ENCOURAGING this kind of behavior?? Americans LOVE this sort of criminality!

My friends will undoubtedly be happily reading children's books to their kids tonight that celebrate rebelliousness and rule-breaking and derring-do (Robin Hood anyone?) in the face of unjust authority. (How about the people in one of the poorest countries on earth brazenly stealing money from people in the richest country on earth? Sounds like the plot of a popular book to me.)

Robert Louis Stevenson was definitely right on the cutting edge, yes. He was a Scot -- and the British were the bosses of Scotland. Such a man surely was anti-authoritarian.

I love to remind customers that this man wrote "A Child's Garden Of Verses" AS WELL AS "Doctor Jekyll And Mr. Hyde" AS WELL AS "Treasure Island" AS WELL AS "Kidnapped." The guy had astonishing range (he was Jorge Luis Borges's favorite writer)

In contemporary American media culture, if it bleeds it leads. We want stories about ANYONE dying in a big fancy way. We want deadly drama. We are collectively fixated on death as morbidly negative and bad.

But Stevenson could write about John Silver the way he did because there's no morbid fixation there. Bravery might entail death. If you're out there on the sea, without any master to answer to -- you were daring, and that's one of those old-time Pagan Virtues. The Roman way of thinking. (Isaiah Berlin talks about the Pagan Virtues brilliantly in "The Crooked Timber of Humanity." Caesar and Machiavelli were on the same page here.)

Silver was out there, on the edge, and Stevenson approved simply because the character Silver didn't require approval of anyone (least of all his own creator).

Here's Stevenson's famous poem about death -- a stanza of this was put on his gravestone (in Samoa -- he was 49 when he died there of TB):

Under the wide and starry sky,
Dig the grave and let me lie.
Glad did I live and gladly die,
And I laid me down with a will.

This be the verse you grave for me:
Here he lies where he longed to be;
Home is the sailor, home from sea,
And the hunter home from the hill.


I think the pirate is an iconic figure in children's literature because he cannot be gotten rid of.

I can't help myself. I'm taking the bait!

The pirates aren’t not killing their hostages out of chivalry. Dead hostages mean there’s nothing to prevent military action against them. The guys are trying to walk the line of stealing as much as they can while not provoking anyone to bring down the hammer. They’re not sticking it to the Man. In this case, they were doing it by commandeering a ship that was transporting relief supplies to Somalia, Uganda, and Kenya. They’re desperate men, in a desperate situation, doing desperate (and, yes, criminal) things. To construct a political message against unjust authority and hypocrisy out of that is wish fulfillment, no matter how bad most American movies are.

Arrrgghh taking the BAIT arrrr you?? Maybe I better wait until I get really piled on by this group before I pull out my heavy weapons (get ready for a lot of appalling references to post-modernist theory....you may wish to spit that hook out of your mouth before I really get going...)

(I do recommend the Isaiah Berlin though, as background reading. Today is a big day for Pagans versus Christians, after all!)

Academic shibboleths, coming astern! I feel nineteen again.

Americans sure do love the bad news. Why monsters prevail as a trend. I think it comes from a cynical focus that I remember starting after the JFK assassination.

Pirates on the poop deck sure beats the so called heros of this business who talk about poop and pissing in their books and in their book presentations. It caters to the lowest common denominator as egos go more out of control and hunger for power grows.

Facebook is a being datamined for all your info, any progressive would be wise to get off it and leave that world of sycophants behind.

I once overheard a funny negotiation between a mother and her four-year-old son who wanted a book about pirates.

Mom: Choose something else. I don't want you to read about pirates.

Kid: Why?

Mom: Because there's too much fighting and stealing in those pirate books.

Kid: But that's what pirates DO!

To the mom's credit, she was persuaded by her son's logic and let him get the pirate book.

Pirates are like dinosaurs. If an Allosaurus emerged from the lake in Prospect Park and started eating strollers like bon bons, sales of How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight would PLUMMET.

On a similar note, I've been wondering how the recent chimp attack in the news would affect Curious George sales. The cute and cuddly factor is definitely tarnished.

i love this book so much!!! it's the most awesome kids against pirates book ever. i like this better than treasure island actually :)

ps: chimp attacks are so in right now. LOL

I started writing a year ago about a fisherman named Percy. The story was for my four year old grandson.
Natural progression led to his arch enemies being written about and they are three pirates. Of course more recently, I have had to ask myself is this ok? My answer is yes. My pirates are ruthless and nasty and not a nice sort, but hey they're ficticious and stupid, they always get caught. (Like in the movies, baddies always getting caught.) Take a look at www.percythefisherman.com
or key percy the fisherman on youtube.
Roy

As one who’s logged time in JP I’d call Rhythm & Muse more eclectic than random, but others’ opinions may vary. Anyway, from experience I can say, stop by or call ahead and Dave will order you any book or CD that you’d like, it’ll be in the store in a couple of days, and when you swing by to pick it up from a fine human being with a genuine love of books and music and a real and metaphorical investment in them both, the good feelings will be so overwhelming that you may have to sit down and have a glass of water, which Dave will be happy to provide, no fee.

Thanks (I guess) for introducing me to A. Bitterman. Boy, is he verbose! Can't there be a surtax on blog length? But rewarding to slog one's way through.

I meant random in the sense of it--to me--having no particular profile. I do agree that the ambience is wonderful and I know they will order books. The problem is that when I come in to pick up my order I won't find three or seven other books I didn't know about but wanted immediately, which is for me the real lure of a bookstore.

Um, the Brookline Booksmith is on the T, Roger. Just a block or two from Coolidge Corner.

Yes but to get to that line I have to go into Back Bay (where there are two chains) and then back out again--Boston public transit has this spoke system that unfortunately neglected the wheel!

Chicago is the best. I am *one block* from Unabridged and it is a terrific store. They're also NICE: they run a free weekly storytime in the library of the Chicago Public School across the street. Not only that, within a few miles we have two additional indies (one of them relatively new): Women & Children First in Andersonville, and the Book Cellar in Lincoln Square. I've never lived in a place with so many thriving independent bookstores!
--Diane F.

I find myself appalled at the state of bookstores in the Boston area. I worked at Waterstone's (in Faneuil) Hall the summer it, Laurriette's (I'm sorry I know that's wrong, but I can't remember the exact name of the store) in Copley Place, and Rizzoli's, also in Copley all closed. I worked at Curious George Goes to Wordsworth in Harvard Square only a couple of years before the parent/adult store closed. There are very few independents left and there aren't that many chains. I find it a sad state when other cities have well known huge independents and Boston seems to barely have bookstores.

yes, the bookstore situation in Boston is a disgrace! I think it's like the old Boston joke: out-of-town bride to new mother-in-law: "And where do you get your hats?"
Mother in law: "My dear, we HAVE our hats."

And Bostonians do read. I notice that our subways have a greater proportion of people reading books than Chicago's or New York's.

Roger, I feel your pain. I should be buying every damn book I own from Bitterman's fine establishment, (that's Reading Reptile in Kansas City, for you midwestern folks) though I would have to drive an hour down and an hour back to get my fix. Instead I hit the Border's on the way home. Or persuade the library to buy the book for me, because they're so nice and I am such a cheapskate.

The better solution is to persuade my awesome mother-in-law to get me a gift certificate for Reading Reptile. Man, I really like her.

Have you been to Porter Square Books?

When I lived in Brookline, I had 3 bookstores in walking distance--head one way to Coolidge Corner and I had the Booksmith and the B&N, head the other way toward the D line and right there off the line is the Children's Bookshop--which, granted, is a children's bookstore and not a full-service one.

Here in po-dunk Orem, Utah, all I have is a 10-minute drive to the local B&N. I have to drive to Salt Lake City for any independents (an hour's drive). So I look back on my days in Boston as pretty good, bookstore-wise. But if you don't live off the C or D line, then that does present a problem.

Roger you're having last year's conversation.

The Bitterman blog's message is that the chain superstores are right now in quite serious trouble.

Between 1960 and 1980 the number of indie bookstores dropped from 10,000 to 2,000. The chains were dominant. But by 1991 there were 5,000 indie bookstores and the chains (B. Dalton, Waldenbooks and Crown) had basically imploded.

Barnes & Noble and Borders are currently getting nailed by Amazon and Cosco. They may be convenient for you today, but they will not be there in five years. However, their former employees will have opened some new indie bookstores and you'll have those to shop at.

Your Eternal Optimist,
Andy Laties

Hi Roger,

Once you put a book out there, it can be used for absolutely anything.
You can't let that keep you from writing.

Thanks for the post.

Clare Bell
Http://www.rathascourage.com/scratchlog.html

Hi Clare--

Much as I detested their ends, I thought Yes on 8's use of King & King was pretty smart. It is used to teach respect for "all kinds of families," a popular topic in elementary schools, and one that is anathema to the God-didn't-make-Adam-and-Steve crowd. (Of course, if God made anybody, he made everybody, which I trust St. Peter will let these folks know when their time comes.)

Thanks for this post, Roger. My gut reaction was to be horrified when I saw King and King used in that commercial (I live in CA, and voted no on 8, and I even grew up in the town that started the big fuss about King and King a couple of years ago). But in reading your comments (and Clare's), and thinking about it objectively, I believe that you're right (especially "I think this is what happens when you forget you've chosen sides."). The book is an illustration of what the yes on 8 people are afraid of, and it did make sense for them to use it (even if I personally was saddened by it). Thanks for the perspective!

maybe we should all wait until yet another author produces a gay penguin book. how many do we have now?

how many gay penguin books are there now? maybe we should all wait a while until there is a quota and then get indignant (or supportive)

Didn't one of those penguins end up jumping the fence? Maybe we should wait 'til there's a right wing book about that, and then get indignant (or supportive).

Yes, there was quite a scandal in the penguin community. ;-)

wow, anonymous is really into penguins

I suspect that Anon. (if there is only one Anon.) has the same problem I do with messaging: does one type message first and then do the code, or vice versa? This might led to repetition, in the belief that the first version was lost.

Type the message, then the code. You eed to remember that comments don't go up until I approve them. I had to institute this step because I was getting a lot of spam from Chinese gold farmers and pretty Russian ladies.

P.S. And of course the penguin lobby is fabulously out of control.

Many thanks for the clear (and prompt) instructions! I (Anon. 9:05) suspect the penguin lobby involves many new correspondents - and OF COURSE there must be a modicum of censorship.

If you took that last sentence you wrote and put it on a t-shirt you could easily retire to Barbados on the incoming wealth. I'm just saying.

How about you make 'em, we split the dough 50-50, and both move back to Chicago?

Well, if you live in an area without a bookstore, amazon is still vaguely cool. Powell's is good too, of course. Seriously, it is almost an hour's drive for me if I want to buy books somewhere other than the grocery store or walmart. Quibbles about the size and power of online book companies quickly becomes a secondary issue. Of course, if I still lived in a place with other options, I would do that.

Nobody ever said Amazon wasn't useful, and it's very, very good at a lot of things. But back when it was a bookstore and a pioneer in e-commerce, it was a lot more fun. It also used to be faster--more books were available more quickly. Now it's kind of like going to the CVS--indispensable but utilitarian, and so crowded with goods and encumbered with reviews, discussions, you'll-also-like, communities, Amazon marketplace, etc., that shopping there is more work than pleasure.

CVS! (Shudder) At least Amazon doesn't make you listen to crap music while you shop there. Though that's probably in beta somewhere.

I do remember those early days fondly. In the city I used to live in (one with many independent bookstores), people referred to amazon as evil. Most of these people had never lived in a small town.

I'm actually pretty good at blocking out the things on the site I don't care about. And some of the customer reviews are hilarious! Of course, I study writing so there are other reasons I find the reviews interesting.

We didn't receive a review copy of Stephenie Meyer's Breaking Dawn

Fascinating. Are you able to posit a guess onblog as to why that might be?

I imagine we will, eventually. No rush.

I'm guessing prepub review copies were not made available, a more frequent circumstance since Harry Potter. Scholastic, though, always arranged it so a review copy would arrive on the day of publication, to whatever address we designated. I don't know what's going on with the Meyer. Another publisher once asked me to sign a confidentiality contract before forking over the review copy, asking me to promise not to Breathe A Word prior to publication date. We didn't sign and it didn't matter, and all the orchestrated drama was in vain if not counter-productive--the book flopped.

If they don't sell it at Target- I'm not going to read it! LOL!

Do people really return books? What a Novel idea!

Right after Eclipse came out Meyer did an appearance with a school through the bookstore where I used to work. She and her publicist told us that due to the proliferation of Eclipse galleys being sold on eBay, there would be no galley for the 4th book.

The current dismay and discord in the Meyer fan universe reminds me of the Harry/Hermione shippers' fury after Harry/Ginny were confirmed as a pair in HP 6. There was this huge anger at each other, at Rowling, and so on; lots of nasty stuff at the Leaky Cauldron and other HP sites. With the Meyers series there seems to be a similar situation of people getting so deeply involved in the greater universe of the books and the author and then feeling hurt and betrayed when the author didn't go in the direction they had hoped. The campaign to return the books just seems related to the incredible intensity of these fandoms and also to the online communities --- no doubt, as there were with HP, the Meyer sites are smokin'! I think this is a phenomena that isn't really about books. I mean, how many authors and books get this crazy intense response?

The problem is that people do see the physical book as the commodity, and not the content. I've also seen a growing number of situations where people consume a meal in a restaurant and then try to get out of paying because it didn't meet their expectations.

We have become a ridiculously selfish society full of entitlements based on little more than a dissociative birthright borne out of capitalism.

Monica, I think this is that fans v. readers thing. As fans, Meyer's (and Rowling's) readers feel like they have some ownership of the story, which can beget jealousy even of the author.

Roger, I think this idea of ownership is key. After all, I encourage my students to make books their "own." As do authors like Philip Pullman (saying that once it is out in the world it is no longer his, but belongs to the readers). And so it makes sense how those who made Meyer's series their story are furious that she pushed it where they don't want to go. I'm less clear on how you are separating fans and readers. Aren't fans readers too? I can certainly see a range from uninvolved-reader to extreme-fan-reader, but still think of them all as readers.

I'm just muddling this out, but while all fans of Meyer are readers, not all her readers are fans. I imagine there a lot of her readers out there who would die before referring to themselves as "Twilighters." Just like not everbody who enjoys Austen is a "Janeite."

I'm just glad to see that I'm not the only one who uses the adjective Ayn Randy.

I can see returning a book if you accidentally bought the wrong one, or ended up with two copies... returning a book you've already read just because you didn't like what was in it? That's like returning your prom dress after you've worn it to the big dance, tags cut out and everything. And all because your date didn't get you the right corsage.

Random fun fact: I have it on good authority (a former TJ's employee) that you can return anything you don't like to Trader Joe's for a full refund, no questions asked.

Elissa, that Trader Joe's policy is posted and encouraged in the stores. The theory is that if you try something you're more likely to try something else in the future. It's also a fact that most of the people who try a TJ's item with the thought of returning it don't return it. It encourages more adventurous buying in the long run.

In movie theatres the deal is the first 20 to 30 minutes of the film (depending on its length) because by then you should know whether or not you're enjoying the movie. The refund means you don't see the end of the picture, but you didn't care for it anyway, right? If you walk out at the end of the movie and say "That was a waste of time, I want my money and my two hours back?" well, that ain't happening.

With books I've been wondering if authors/publishers wouldn't be wise to sell their books with the last 50 to 100 pages missing, to be purchased with a single-sue code unique to each book. Once you've read it, no refund, and the online code will confirm you didn't read it. (Or maybe the other way around, the first half of the book online, the second half in stores with a 'no refund' policy attached. Still mulling this over)

The point is, there's no way currently to know whether people are using the chain stores as extended libraries (and many do, which is why B&N recently changed their return policies) and since sales are what authors are paid by it seems like time for a paradigm shift in how content (as opposed to books) are handled and sold.

Elissa, I just thank God you didn't return those dried mango slices with chili powder!

still need a book? you know, i just got mine yesterday.

zoe

This reminds me of a recent event with my very unhappy 8-year-old who wanted to return a book she had purchased with her hard earned allowance. I wouldn't let her do it because she had already read half the book (can't remember what it was). We talked about what you pay for when you buy a book as well as the difference between a bookstore and a library. She was most unhappy with the fact that I would not budge (20 minutes of crying ensued). It was interesting that a few days later, after a visit to the library she begrudgingly told me that she was glad I didn't allow her to return the book.

I wonder if there is an age or developmental stage when younger readers start to feel more ownership over what happens in stories.

I bought the first book soley because of the great cover art. Had never heard of Stephenie Meyers. I enjoyued all the books but have not followed the saga over the internet etc. I didn't even know she was a Mormon until someone told me the other day. I guess that makse me a reader not a fan.
Also have to say this idea of returning a read book because it didn't turn out to be what you expected is immature enough. To return it so the author 'won't get her money' is downright juvenile and spiteful.
Whoever started this dangerous little trend should be firmly smacked over the wrist and put back in their playpen.

On Ayn Randiness. I was talking to someone last week about the Twilight series. Neither of us cared for the messages inherent in the story [for example: given a guy who is attracted to you in a sexual and violent way, why yes, of course, go out in the woods! to total isolation! because you know, he LOVES you, he would never hurt you. . .] I usually counsel people who are worrying about their child's reading to worry less, because children are generally more competent than people realize at differentiating fact from fiction. But my friend and I both see Twilight as rather insidious because so many of Bella's decisions are presented as perfectly natural and reasonable, but also because of the Ayn Randiness of fans.

It isn't other teens who are oohing and aaahing. It's adults claiming "best romance evah." It's as if the story is being validated in the real world, by grown-ups and I can see this influencing an eleven, twelve or thirteen year old's understanding of the story.

Is it just me? Or are there other people who wish we could go back to pre-Harry Potter days when people read a book and liked it instead of being swept into a fad of over-the-top adoration?

There's Ayn Randiness in the story itself--at least in Twilight, the only one I've read. Bella is just like Dagny or Dominque quivering in need and acquiesence at the feet of a superman. I can totally see why teenaged girls love the book--all that longing, just like Flowers in the Attic--but as fodder for the dreams of the everyday housewife it squicks me out.

And, wow, Zoe, you work there! Ours came yesterday, too--Claire has one copy and I have the other.

I have been fascinated by this proprietorial attitude towards some else's creation since the Buffy days. Those Twilighters wanting their money back have nothing on fan rage compared to some Buffy fans who to this day will not forgive Joss Whedon for killing Tara... or even those who refuse to watch past Season 5 because they don't like the direction Whedon took "their" characters.

Super-duper, Roger! I saw it here first, because I haven't gotten my Sunday Times yet. Thank you!

Well, I question your patriotism.

Who do you suppose REALLY wrote that book? My hunch is, someone on the White House publicity staff. (Not Harper editorial or promotion folks - they would know better. Must be wincing now.)

So much for MY patriotism. Thanks for a great review!

No, they wrote it--Laura said they thought about it for a long time and then sat down and wrote the thing in twenty minutes. I remember Bill O'Reilly saying Madonna couldn't have written The English Roses, but, as there, I don't understand why everyone thinks writing a bad picture book is difficult. It isn't.

I think they wrote it in less than ten minutes. Did you read that thing- I won't qualify it as a book? Harpercollins-LOL! Shame on you!

Shame on Harper indeed--but it IS #1 on the NY Times bestseller list and that is all the Game now. Sigh

By the way,I thought they said it took them 45 minutes to write. I see they were exaggerating.

Jane

I don't think this is a shame-on-Harper moment--is there a major publisher out there who would have turned this down? Except when publishers eat their own (like Harper commissioning the colorized Charlotte's Web, or Random House's collection of truncated picture book classics) I think blame should stick to the authors, so shame on Laura like white on rice.

Amen, Roger. Amen.

I don't understand.

Why would two people who presumably know better produce a book like this? Do you think they were constrained by expectations? Suppose they had produced a competent but uninspiring rehash of Where the Wild Things are-- the typical Billy had a bad day, but he's better now Book. It might have gone to the top of the list driven by celebrity and marketing, but buying it wouldn't have been an affirmation of right-mindedness, a badge of honor. It just would have been a book. But THIS, this isn't a book you are buying but a token of your membership in the Literacy Party. Did it have to be bad in order to count? So heavy handed so that grown-ups could buy into it?

Would Harpercollins have pushed for just this kind of book because everybody who claims to believe in Literacy has to buy it?

Or is it that the book isn't actually for children but for adults who need to be convinced that reading is important for their children. So many picture books seem to be parenting lessons in disguise, like the TV show Caillou. Adults are so much denser than children, you have to be really heavy handed to get the point across?

I'm clutching at straws, maybe, but I'd like to know why this sort of thing happens so often.

h

It seems odd to me that no one has yet asked: "How much was the ADVANCE?"

The market for celebrity-author picture books is almost always parents and other end-consumer adults. Such books have little traction in the school-and-library market and little kids themselves have zero interest in who wrote a book. I think they're mostly aimed at people who don't read but think that reading is a virtue they should inculcate in their kids. The celebrity authorship provides a comfortable reference point, and because these consumers equate reading with school, they think there should be lessons.

So you think they couldn't successfully have written anything else? If they had written a book that would have appealed to readers/librarians, it wouldn't have sold well enough to justify the costs?
h

It may not become a bestseller but it is nonetheless a real investment for the publisher. The authors get a whopping advance, which will presumably be donated with appropriate fanfare to a well publicized charity.
And the agency, in addition to the fee, solidifies its relationship with a major publisher and potential clients.

I’ll bet that the book is at least as bad as RS’s review indicates but let’s not pile on. It’s not the first time that good intentions and belief in a worthy effort (and we can at least give them that, yes?) have clouded authorial talent and judgement. Often enough, the more noble the cause, the worse the prose.

Roger notes in his review, " ...no librarian! In a book promoting the joy of reading, this, my friends, is low."
It's ironic that the Bush administration's unfunded NCLB mandates is making this very nearly true. Thank goodness for moms with the stamina to push back.

Anon@2:37

I didn't mean to pile on. I am not interested in bashing the Bushes. As you pointed out, this isn't the first time people have poured heart and soul into something that turns out heavy handed and soulless. I just wonder why that happens. And why people, who should be able to see that something has gone wrong, can't.

I bought the Bush book and read it with my son. He said, "Papa that book is by the President's Wife. It should have been really good!"

Then we went back to Prince Caspain. Thank goodness Harpercollins has a Backlist!

A.D.

On LARRY KING, Larry asked the Laura and Jenna how old Tyrone, their main character was. I was appalled that Jenna, a former teacher, doesn't know age ranges. This is from the transcript:

KING: How old is he?

(CROSSTALK)

L. BUSH: Second grade.

J. BUSH: So he's about nine or 10, eight or nine.

I hated the book, but I'd totally forgotten the reference to the library pages. Along with being offensive and totally unnecessary, put using the term "pages" in the category of "words kids wouldn't use."

I've also wondered at the choice of name for the main character, Tyrone. What's up with that?

I was reading somewhere a discussion of the Bushes' choice of "Tyrone," with several commentors querying why she gave a "black" name to a white character, and others countering that Tyrone is actually Irish. But BabyNameFacts.com confirmed what I had suspected, that, black or white, guys named Tyrone are far more likely to be pushing forty than nine--it's getting into dog-name territory, like Roger.

Color me confused. Roger do you mean that if you like a book you shouldn't review it in two places because that means it is taking up a spot that could have been dedicated to another book, and that's why two reviews are unfair? Or do you mean it is unfair to be inconsistent between reviews? What if, for example, you said the most recent Celebrity Book was no different from previous iterations of the same, and the offspring of NYT readers would lap it up like spilt milk, but you told Horn Book's readers it was the same old pap and not to buy it for their libraries?

I think I mean both. If I review a book in two places, I'm taking perhaps-valuable space that could go to another book or another reviewer's point of view. And to say good-enough-for-the-Times but not-good-enough-for-the-Horn-Book is just cynical.

I don't know if I blame America - I blame the American people for their complete loss of virtue and sense of personal responsibility.

From the Times piece: “It opened my mind to the fact that not everybody is as they are portrayed on the news,” she said. “Everything’s not that black and white or gray or brown.”

Indeed! I think we’re all sick of gray and brown portrayals of complicated events.

Also I loved the idea of her chatting up the Black Panthers at Starbucks. Another grande soy carmel macchiato latte, Huey?

I find it totally hilarious that "Beautiful Boy" is sold at Starbucks. As a Starbucks addict myself (okay, go ahead and throw stones, but remember, I live in Iowa. Starbucks IS the best coffee here), I laugh every time I see that jumping boy on the cover.

Re: the memoir issue. I have a simple solution: Let's just call autobiographical literature what it's always been: fiction. It's easy. There's no such thing as "truth," at least as Americans would describe "truth," in autobiography.

(My dissertation was on autobiographical literature written by 18th century Russian aristocrats in French. No truth there either.)

I love the cheerful reader comment that now she can write a true story about being ratted out by her sister.

oh yeah, Anon., there is definitely a story there. I hope we hear from the sister soon.

In lieu of this morning's news, take a look at the profile of Seltzer/Jones in last Thursday's Home section of the Times. There you will read such gems as

"The house smelled of black-eyed peas, which were stewing with pork neck bones — a dish from the repertory of her foster mother, known as “Big Mom,” whose shoe box of recipes she inherited."

I'm sure there's already been commentary on this elsewhere, but it's interesting that both stories involve the appropriation of another racial/ethnic background... and that in both cases this seems related, somehow, to the romanticization of suffering. (Along with a whole slew of other prejudiced assumptions.)

Maybe it's true that we'd like a dose of the miraculous to help digest stories of horror and violence. But maybe we also have a fundamental wish to misunderstand horror and violence in the first place...

Ruth

We have a wish for the supposedly ennobling effects of suffering and injustice, and perhaps also for the romance of confession. All this without having to go through the actual trials, of course!

I am addicted to books and I don't care where I get my fix! I wish more parents were addicted to books and what a better America for our children we would have!

A.D.

In reference to the book Beautiful Boy, it seems a great fit to me to have a book about drug addiction become very present and out there in the world for all to see.
As someone who went looking for factual and/or memoir material for this author to reference during his family's time of need, I can honestly say that there is very little out there that was helpful to him.
My hope is that his book, and that of his son, offer some relief and hope for those many others in the same, or similar predicaments.

Hurrah for Kelly's "simple solution." OF COURSE autobiography is fiction! Why hasn't this been known all along?

Doesn't conventional wisdom state that it's easier to sell publishers on memoir than it is on fiction? When the authors are caught, they try to put as good and profound a spin on the situation as they can, but with some of them I have to wonder if they weren't just trying to use the system to get published any way they could. Some of these people may not be identifying with other groups, may not be romanticizing anything. They're just trying to get away with something.

Have you noticed how many more comments posts get when they allow for the expression of outrage and indignation?

I've been having a related argument with my roommates lately, about truth and fact. I don't think that something needs to be "factual" to be True, that something need not be Non-Fiction to be True. They would disagree-- or at least, they don't understand.

Fiction, at least in my neck of the University Woods, is for those who don't want to read about REAL things, for the dreamers. Everyone else reads history, or biographies, or autobiographies, economics, memoirs, etc, as if this adds a level of true gravity and seriousness to their perspective.

People tell and believe all kinds of stories for all kinds of reasons, and we always have to bring forward our best judgment. The first issue of Notes from the Hornbook refers to Maurice Sendak's tale of a woman who read Where the Wild Things Are over and over to a screaming child, and when asked why, said the book won the Caldecott. I believe Sendak said that, but, with no disrespect to the genius, I don't believe that happened, at least not quite in that way. It makes a great story, and I'd retell it myself, but only with raised eyebrows.

People certainly do polish their best anecdotes--it's really fun to read Marilyn Horne's and Beverly Sills' respective accounts of their mutual appearance at La Scala!

Here's another one! (It's Kathy O'Beirne's 2005 memoir, Kathy's Story: A Childhood Hell Inside the Magdalene Laundries)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/portal/main.jhtml?xml=/portal/2008/03/05/ftmag105.xml

Will Max have a Coke in his very own room waiting for him and it was still cold in the next edition?

I'm also waiting for that certain publisher to realease their Oprah Children's book! It's coming right after the Jenna and Laura
Bush one about the boy who didn't like to read!

Man, it is so darn easy to pile on here. I could almost justify the use of product placement, really, but having the cojones to call it "authenticity?" This from the house that Ursula Nordstrom built? Does anyone know if Ms. Nordstrom was cremated? If not, she's rolling in her grave.

"She who for the first time" brings up a good point. Anyone want to defend this "authentic" enterprise?

Your post almost made me spill my Tetley tea all over my Microsoft keyboard!

I think I better go have some Dove dark chocolate and CALM DOWN.

B.

I keep tellin' you, B. There's no money in mass market.

The "balls" tag says it all, Roger, when authenticity=commercialism.

I remember what happnened to Dav Pilkey when Spam (the canned ham stuff) appeared on the cover of the First Dumb Bunny Book. The Hormel Company wasn't amused and they covered it (Spam) up with those silly Too Dumb To Win An Award Stickers. If you have a first edition you have Spam!

With a tip of the hat to M.T. Anderson--
STOP THE FEED!

I remember a few years ago when SpiderMan 2 was coming got, Bud Selig the commissioner of baseball wanted to rent out the base pads. They were going to put spiderwebs on the bases or something like that. Baseballs fans were outraged and spoke out. This idea never came to be thankfully. So maybe HC can learn from baseball. Hopefully if there is enough backlash this won't happen at all or not for long
Doret

And here I was hoping the word was "tween" or "embedded".

More news from the chilit industry: see today's New York Times art section piece on James Patterson martketing campaign. I particularly liked the bit on flap copy style. No mention of product placement yet, but that will come.

As a starving children's author, I could find a smidge of justification in it if the funds for having Mr. Jinx eat Friskies and only Friskies before he saves the world in Mr. Jinx Saves the World (and Friskies) would come to me, but I think we can safely say that isn't going to happen.

Hey, Roger. I tried my hand at product placement today. I hope it works!

http://kidslitinformation.blogspot.com/2008/02/place-me-and-what-she-said.html

There's a sour taste in my mouth and heart right now.

And think how DATED a book will seem--and it will happen almost instantly. If they think the tweens of 2008 will be carrying the shoes and wearing the same clothes as the tweens of 2010, they are not paying attention.

Ick.

Could she have meant that, by virtue of the author's using the names of real items as seen in real life, young readers will feel the characters actually exist in the real world? Bright Lights Big City for the younger set (sans cocaine). Ho hum.

Anon 4:42 AM (!)

I'm sure that is what she meant, and there is an interesting question in there somewhere about the extent to which our and kids' lives are genuinely tied up with brands and products. But the obvious problem with HC's approach is that when you accept money from sponsors as a way of deciding what products your characters will use for purposes of constructing (a shell of) an identity, then you undercut whatever interesting qualities the idea might have held.

In today's Metro there's a quote from a Kosovo imam explaining his nascent country's version of Islam: "Our Islam is 'lite'--like Coke Lite or Marlboro Light cigarettes." So, yeah, brands are part of our "authentic" discourse. But I'm with the most recent anon. in thinking that auctioning brand placement to the highest bidder nullifies whatever verisimilitude the author was attempting. And if it doesn't matter whether the character drinks Coke or Pepsi, than either name is merely a distraction.

if/thEn. Why can't we edit comments?

Roger, do you honestly think the authors of the tween series Susan Katz describes are going for "verisimilitude?" What does it really matter if a character has hair "the color of potato chips" or "the color of Lays potato chips?"

It sounds to me like this is just one more foray into the well-traveled Land of Dreck. You know Harper will milk money out of an idea in any way it can, and other publishers will be watching to see if it works.

The whole idea could backfire on them completely, though. The tweens who are so brand-name conscious that they care if a character carries a Juicy bag are the same tweens who will mock the character mercilessly for doing so when Juicy goes out of style. They are a cruel and fickle crowd, and the amount of time for a product to go from "What's Hot" to "What's Not" is, hmmm, let's see, about the same amount of time it takes to go from manuscript to reader.

I will laugh my ass off if the brains at Harper are so misguided they think they keep up with tween trends, and end up being ridiculed as just one more group of clueless adults.

Of course RS doesn't really think that. No one does. But it is the line that HC trots out as an excuse, so a critique of it is in order.

I’d like to see this brave new series develop along the lines of the old Choose Your Own Adventure titles:

“That was it, then. If Hendrik and his cousin from the city were going to be at Gerrit’s poetry reading, then Tamara knew what she had to do. She reached deep into the armoire and took a firm grip of her ____ jeans.”

J.Crew, hip-slung, resin-rinsed washed: Go to page 36.

father’s unwashed button-fly 501 Original Levi’s: Go to page 12.

Jordache: Step away from the book.

Live the brand! Live the adventure!

LMFAO @ Brian. I'd actually read that series!

Anybody who buys an American Girl's book knows that they are paying money for an ad, or anyway, they should. Thanks to the size of the series, they usually aren't even shelved with other books. They have their own shelf, or stand out in the middle of the floor next to the most recent celeb picture book.

And anybody who reads the Clique books knows that the product references are part of the atmosphere and expects them.

Anybody who watches television views it with a certain amount of skepticism.

But a middle grade book with branding? I don't want children to have to read books the same way they watch TV, with a little skepticism monitor going all the time. Ask them to do that and it means they will read less, because they will be less involved in the story, because they will HAVE to be less involved, keep a little distance, in order to be wary of being taken in by advertisers.

I only hope HC will have the decency to differentiate these Advertising-Books from real books. I know, small hope, huh?

I'm wondering if they'll put out a call for authors to submit stories with xyz brand? You know, the way magazine publishers have monthly themes-- so you can write to order. :-)

And then they might also want to indicate which books are "high end" and which cater to the cheaper crowd. Audience matters, after all.

Sheesh.

I want to learn how to tag my own blog posts the way you do.

It is all about the money, but it is also all about when my son opened up and read his very own copy of Jon Scieszka's Smash! Crash! (The First Book of the Truck Town Series)and wondered aloud why there were not more truck and car books. What do seven year olds know? They know a lot!

Scieszka's new series, Eric Rohmann's A Kitten Tale, The Newbery and Caldecott on Monday and American Idol next Tuesday- It's like Christmas all over!!!

(Those three !!! are for the grammar Nazi and the affect/effect is for is for the spelling troll!)

Happy Mid Winter ALA!


Anonymous Dad

Great article (Patsy Aldana's), Roger. Here's hoping that there's a way to make books with integrity within reasonable financial constraints. The world doesn't need more merchandise.

Yes, seven year olds know a lot, but not about publishing. There are hundreds and hundreds of books about cars and trucks. I buy at least a couple new ones every month for my library.

an anonymous children's librarian

An Anonymous Children's Librarian,
You are right that most seven year olds do not know much about publishing. They do know what books they like. Who are the publishers marketing to? (Is it parents, teachers, librarians or kids?) It is usually the one with the cash or credit card. (Money!)

My son and I had a long discussion about car and truck books on Saturday. I gave him the directive to pull all of the car and truck books from his shelves. We were both amazed at the number of car and truck books he had on his shelves. He has I'm Dirty, Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel, Naughty Bus (We got it in London!), C is for Construction, Tip Tip Dig Dig, If I Built a Car, Sheep in a Jeep, Seymour Simon's Book of Trucks, Cool Cars, Rattletrap Car, Richard Scarry's Cars and Trucks and Things That Go, Mr. Grumpy's Motor Car, Katy and the Big Snow, Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus, I Stink, School Bus, Trucks, Duck in a Truck, Seven Tonka Books, Four Transformer Books, Five Disney/Pixar Cars Books, Two Matchbox Car Books, Bubba and Beau Go Night-Night, On the Road with Jeff Gordon, Monster Trucks, Corvettes, Two Cars, Zoom City, Classic Cars, The Berenstain Bears Too Much Car Trip, My Truck is Stuck, Richard Scarry's Cars and Trucks from A to Z, and Smash! Crash! This kid has a few car and truck books. I LOVE THAT KID!

I have a great appreciation for librarians. Thank you for what you do each day. You change the world one book and one child at a time!


God bless all who love children's books!!!

Anonymous Dad

Roger,

This is off topic, sorry. I wanted to say that I really liked the review of Candyfloss in the NYT. I'll make an effort to get a copy.

On topic, I have some question. Was Aldana's point that children's publishing used to be a gentle(wo)man's occupation and isn't anymore. That those of us still doing it for love are patsy's in the hands of Rupert Murdoch? That businesses that have been business-like right from the beginning have more safeguards in place to prevent corruption? Is the Newbery more for-sale than it used to be? I think you said before that it was pretty tightly controlled by a small group in the early days.

Go Hugo!

Yeah, good work on the committee!

I was wondering the same thing. It's not that long a book, and I don't think it's that complex that would require stretching to two movies...

It won't be two films from the same book. It's going to be 'The Hobbit' and (oh dear) 'A sequel'. I take that to mean PJ and co. will be writing some more jolly adventures for Bilbo and his spiffing magic ring...

>> How the heck...

There: Part I of The Hobbit Saga

Back Again: Part II of the Hobbit Saga

how do you make a two-part HOBBIT ? the same way you make a book/game construct to exploit the already-hooked POTTER readers with something "just as good" - that is, having a commercial instinct

The Hobbit! The book may be as short as its namesake, but it is chockablock loaded. From the vaults of sixth grade memory come tumbling, in rough order of appearance, Gandalf, dwarves, trolls, mountains, goblins, Gollum, the Ring, and so on, and that’s not halfway through the book. I could go on. I couldn’t tell you what I read last night, but I can do chapter and verse of the Hobbit. Anyway, two movies, easy. Which must have lead New Line to the natural question, why settle for one cash cow, when you can have two? I’m only surprised there won’t be three.

How about:

First Movie:
What Ever Happened to Lyra, Roger, Billy, Mrs. Coulter, Lord Asriel and Bilbo?

Second Movie:
The Wrath of Gollum

How the heck do you do any less?

Most movies made from novels are sad, truncated affairs: who hasn't had the experience of seeing a film made from a favorite book and missing the excised secondary characters and plotlines?

The very best adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, for example, isn't any of the theatrical film versions but the 6-part BBC miniseries. There was enough time in that format to do the novel something like justice.

By contrast, John Huston's The Dead has all the time in the world to explore its material, a short story.

I've long thought short stories made better bases for film because you could get through the plot and still leave time for all the visual exploration film does best.

So I say hooray to this news, especially if it's Peter Jackson at the helm. I didn't agree with all of his LOTR choices but in terms of filming the otherwise unfilmable he did an amazing job.

Another obvious example of the short-story source material leaving the director ample room to explore: Brokeback Mountain.

Sorry for the double-post, but couldn't leave that one out...

I felt bad about my snarky take on Enchanted until I read the ">comment on my post from a father who saw the film through his nine-year-old Jewish daughter's eyes.

I didn't read McDreamy and Elphaba as Jewish but maybe I missed something. I think all the rest--the creepy gay guy, the neck-rolling black woman, the peddler, cab driver, etc., are meant to be part of the satire on how Disney treats the Other. This makes it less of a kids' movie, though, as they won't get the joke.

You're a better sport than me, Roger. I still think spoofs and satire work better when they're done from the margins, not when a powerful empire tries to make fun of itself.

For what's it worth, I asked my Jewish boyfriend about this and he says it never occurred to him that the Dempsey and Menzel characters were meant to be Jewish.

Really? Dempsey seemed generic to me, but I felt like the filmmakers were underlining Menzel's Jewishness from the get go. Maybe it's because I live in Newton.

Sorry to be obtuse, but what does living in Newton have to do with it?

I'm afraid I didn't see it either. Don't know if Menzel herself is Jewish, but my little student who played the lawyer's daughter sure is.

Newton is the type of town where many -- not just some -- strive to be aware of and talk about the existence and/or possibility of anti-Semitism and racism in general. Menzel is Jewish, which I didn't know before I saw the movie. Your student was terrific, by the way, the highlight of the film for me.

I seriously can not get over the Bazelon piece. One of the weirdest articles I've ever read anywhere.

It looks as if Bazelon wanted to write about Flowers in the Attic (ah...why?) and grasped at Compass as an intro for her piece because it's an easy sell right now.

That subtitle, "Should Children Read Philip Pullman's Trilogy--Or The Incest Classic Flowers in the Attic, is sort of brilliant in its randomness. I also love that it can be read as an either/or statement. They can read Philip Pullman's trilogy or an incest classic! You choose!

Ha! Except what's funny, too, is that she actually, as if quite by accident, stumbles across some of the themes of His Dark Materials.

In her piece Bazelon asks a question, in an admittedly haphazard way, about children who stand on the threshold of adulthood-- and about the stories told them by those who have already crossed over. Like Pullman, she talks about the temptation inherent to those adult stories, with their sexual content and their promise of a more mature knowledge. Granted, she *is* discussing Flowers in the Attic, not Genesis. Still, there's some faint echo of Pullman in her concluding paragraph: "In the meantime, the lesson of Flowers holds for good books that tempt readers before they're ready for them: If your kid won't put the book down, help him make what sense he can of it."

Of course, Pullman might say that children's readiness comes before adult willingness, and that the making of sense is the goal itself.

Watching the film adaptation of The Golden Compass, I was reminded of these sorts of thematic questions. (And also found myself askng the question: is it truly impossible to construct a coherent narrative when filming a children's book?) Even with the Authority recast as a pseudo-Nazi State, the questions about childhood remain unadulterated in the film. And I was still left wondering about this vision of children-- their role in a grand, adult battle for the future of humanity. Is childhood, itself, a battleground in an adult war? Are stories weapons in that battle? Do the stories adults tell children tempt them across a threshold, into the world of adult knowledge (with others, like Pullman's Mary M., there to guide the way)?

If this is the vision of the Christian right, is it also, in some way, a vision reflected in Pullman's books themselves?

Ruth

Emily Bazelon is a welcome change from the kiddy-lit professionals!

Like calling to like, I guess.

Ruth, I was interested to see that the Christian organization MovieGuide.org, labelling the movie "abhorrent," seemed most bothered by the fact that Lyra was disobedient to her mother, whom MovieGuide seems to think is getting a bad rap: "Mrs. Coulter may be the villain, but all she really tries to do in this movie is to save her daughter’s life." See review at http://www.movieguide.org/index.php?s=reviews&id=7623

I think you might have a Horn Book article in your ideas about what we adults want stories to do for children--how about it? In message board discussions between "Christians" and "atheists" (broadly sketched both) about Pullman, both sides complain about the other wanting to "brainwash" children.

Here's what I want stories to do for children: give them the strength and savvy not to be brainwashed.

Just seeing the previews for The Seeker, I knew the movie was going to be as wretched as Claire Gross confirms in her review. The BBC needs to start production on their version right now. . . .

Brava Claire. Elegantly vicious, and brilliantly expressed. A far better review than the movie deserves.

I'm going to pretend that this movie never happened, and that a Hayao Miyazaki version is in the works instead. (A girl can wish!)

Oh, yeah, I could go for a Miyazaki film. It would be changed but still very fine. As for the books, I didn't read them until i was 50, and they thrilled me and chilled me and wrapped me in Cornish fogs, Welsh mists, and always a great sense of place. They resonate in my head more than a decade later. Thanks for the warning on the film.

Great review--reminds me of why I love the books so much. My heart breaks for Susan Cooper. I say we should organize a boycott of the film.

Oh, I think the boycott is already well under way ;-)

Totally outrageous! See if I go back there on my visits to Cambridge (I don't think so). All college and private school bookstores try to prevent students from saving money by buying books elsewhere. I think it's terrible, and of course the idea of IBSBNs being their intellectual property is out of this world. It'll be fun to watch this one.
Thanks, Roger!

aren't ISBNs listed in BOOKS IN PRINT? (or is BIP still in existence?) this might be a simpler way for students to bypass the COOP.

According to today's Harvard Crimson the Coop called the cops on students writing down ISBNs yesterday (http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=519615).

What I don't understand is how this method of obtaining ISBNs is efficient. Surely the course reading lists are online--couldn't the ISBNs be referenced from there with more ease?

On two separate occasions I've had people who worked at the co-op deny they were affiliated with Barnes & Noble. What's up with that place?

Best line in that last article: "It sort of takes the 'co' out of 'coop.'" And what does that leave you with, really?

Looking forward now to the Coop's awkward and fumbling quasi-backpedaling and feigned disappointment at the misunderstanding.

My coworker's daughter got in trouble for copying down ISBNs at the bookstore at her college in Wyoming. Disgusting.

Aw, you guys are such babes in the woods here.

Don't you know that book stores in university towns are cut-throat competitors when it comes to stocking required reading? That's because it's, like, required, and they have a built-in customer base of people who have to buy the books. Why else would someone pay $140 for a dry, boring book called "Introduction to Physics"? Text books are the bread and butter of book stores in university towns. No text book sales, no "Harvard Dad" t-shirts.

Typically, a professor will select a particular book store to carry his text books, and will relay this info directly to the store. The traditional way for the other book stores in town to find out what's on Dr. Who's syllabus is to send someone into the competitor's store to copy down all the ISBNs for the required reading in his course. This someone is usually a student who, if caught, can simply say, "I'm just a poor student shopping for the best deal on my text books!"

That's clearly what has happened here, and my guess is we're not getting the full story of the long-standing war between the Coop and whatever Cambridge book store is paying some poor student to go in and copy down the ISBNs.

If this were simply a case of a student shopping for the best deals, he could get the bibliographic info off of his own syllabus and look the titles up on half.com. Even a Harvard student could figure out how to do that.

No, Vodko, the linked stories make it clear that the students were gathering ISBNs to be used by a student-run, nonprofit online-bookstore-aggregator (there's gotta be a simpler word!). But hell, even if they were professional sniffers from the Harvard Bookstore down the street, the Coop has no right to claim ISBNs as their "intellectual property."

P.S. Spent 128.93 dollars at the Brookline Booksmith yesterday.

Blarg. This is the kind of story that sort of makes me want to cover myself in ISBN numbers and chain myself to their front doors in protest of their intense worthlessness.

If the poor, struggling, independent bookstore for my college could afford not only to NOT call the cops on students writing down the ISBNs, but to make said numbers available freely on its website, than surely Barnes and Noble/the Coop, who are, presumably, the Harvard of college bookstore* can permit its students the right to copy the damn things down.

Oh, and to the person who recommended looking up the bibliographic info, the ISBN is much more helpful, because it specifies not just book and author, but publisher and edition as well, both of which are usually crucial in have correct in a school book.

*i.e. rich as Croesus, high on snobbery, and lacking in moral fiber.

We're having a problem with the Horn Book blog, and while comments are showing up here at Jacketflap (from where I'm commenting) they don't show up on our site, and I can't post, either. I hope it gets cleared up soon.

I saw a Boston Globe article yesterday that reframed the controversy into a demand from the student booksellers for the Coop's list of ISBNs for Harvard textbooks and the Coop's refusal to provide same. If this is true then my sympathies go back to the Coop--well, not my sympathies, exactly, but I agree that they have no responsibility to provide a competitor with information they have gathered for themselves. I wonder if public support for the students has caused them to overreach?

Some things that some of you are not taking into consideration:
1. Think about the work and expense the Coop must go through to obtain this information from the professors. Not surprisingly, the professors don't just hand over complete, accurate, and timely information.
2. Harvard University has chosen to enter into a contract with Barnes & Noble to run the Coop. There are many benefits for Harvard from B&N as a result. Check with the contract administrator for more details.
3. The textbook business is actually a very low-margin business. Most bookstores do not have room in their pricing to "slash" prices. Want to know more? Check out the info from the National Association of College Stores. As an aside, they make a lot more on the Harvard Dad t-shirt.

Before anybody says anything, no I don't work for Barnes & Noble. I'm a local student who believes in doing their research and having all of the relevant information at hand.

Does she get to keep her library card???

Barb Kerley

Interesting question, Barb. Wonder what the library policy is on books that have not been returned? Do they have a legal leg to stand on refusing to let her check out other titles?

I would guess because this is a public library and taxpayers pay for the books it is a rock and a hard place issue. Guess it's up to the lawyers now.

By "books that have not been returned" do you mean "stolen?" One can't go just around taking things that one wants (for whatever reason) and then mail in a check after the fact. Else I would have a lot more things.

How hypocritical of her. She's trying to force others to not-learn how babies are made, when she clearly chose entirely on her own to not-learn how books are made.

If you read the ALA US and World News, you can see that a high school student in Alabama is doing the same thing with Ellen Wittinger's Sandpiper. How interesting that these people probably see themselves as the epitome of good citizens and yet they are infringing on others basic right to information.

Yeah--and a few years ago, an anti-gay religious group took my BRIAR ROSE out of the Kansas City public library (along with two other gay-themed books) and set them on fire on a hibachi on the steps of the KC Board of Education. As I thought at the time, they should be charged with two crimes: stealing public property and burning trash without a license.

But what do I know!

However it shows that this is not a NEW problem but an OLD solution.

Jane

I once worked at a public library that had an off-duty police officer as a security guard in the evening. He hated being bored (not much security action at this branch) so he would call people who had overdue books, and say "This is police officer XXXX calling about your overdue library books..." It was amazing how many books came back the very next day after such a call--a much better return than we got on our usual mailed overdue notices.

Of course this approach would just give these people the opportunity to put some martyr-ish spin on it, claiming to be singled out for harrassment just for taking a "moral" stand...

It keeps sticking in my mind that she said she 'rented' the books from the library instead of borrowed. The word 'borrow' implies, well - a debt or favor from the lender, a service that one should feel appreciation for. She obviously didn't rent any books in the first place, although she did later think she could rightfully purchase them [maybe she has this whole library thing mixed up with Blockbuster] but her use of the word 'rent' certainly implies a set of perceived consumer rights and an obligation to satisfy that the word borrow does not have.

People like this give censorship a bad name.

Really. Every time I start to think that someone needs to open a sensible discussion to find some well-reasoned ground, some whack job like this casts the entire subject back into black-and-white: we must never never question the books selected by librarians and teachers because we might incidentally support narrow-minded and self-righteous spotlight-seekers like this woman. She is immoral, un-american, and not helping anyone.

`h

If I were the library director, I would pursue the matter as if it were any other overdue book, following whatever procedures were in place for that. I don't think it much matters why she doesn't return the book.

'h, I'm interested to know what shades of gray you think we need to look at. I'm not saying there aren't any but am curious to know what you're thinking. My own point of view is admittedly pretty black and white!

Roger, I really like your take on the irrelevance of the woman's motives. It underlines the library's commitment not to pass judgment, which sits right at the heart of freedom of access. It's an argument I use when confronted with folks who want to limit children to the children's area. That limitation is predicated on the idea that kids are taking the books out to read them. I imagine that, in most cases, they are. But they might be checking them out because they want their room painted the color of the dust jacket, or because their uncle wrote the book, or because they want to sit on it while practicing the piano. We don't know, and we shouldn't care. It's your library card, not mine. I'm thrilled to help a child find a book she just might love to read. But I'm just as happy to help her find something for purposes all her own.

I once worked in a library where, while rearranging the picture book area, we discovered three copies of Daddy's Roommate and two copies of Heather Has Two Mommies hidden under a range of shelving. The copies had been going missing, and we had been blithely replacing them. After our discovery, it would seem that the same person was disposing of them, without ever checking them out. At least this woman is forthright...

I remember loaning It's Perfectly Normal to a parent in my class who was expecting a baby. I knew her to be a member of the religious right and was pleased to see that she wanted her child to have the facts straight while they were expecting a new baby after many years. She was a tad anxious about her late-in-life baby, but assured me she wanted to be honest and open with her daughter, who had asked very very specific questions.

I did tell her that there were plainspoken references to sexuality, and urged her to read the book before sharing it so she could be prepared for the questions.

Imagine my bemusement when my book returned, very well-read, with strategically-placed paper clips over the pages about homosexuality and intercourse! If her clever daughter was smart enough to ask, "But HOW did the sperm get into your vagina?" I imagine she was smart enough (and curious enough) to work a paper clip loose.

Roger,

I am pretty strongly pro-choice, and getting more so all the time. I believe that all people, whatever their age, should be free to choose what they read, and part of that means choosing what not to read. When it comes to children, there are many of their rights we abridge, and while I believe that this may be one of them, I think any abridgement should be made with forethought and respect that is pretty rare these days.

Frankly, I don't want my seventh grader to be assigned The Chocolate War. Of course, I want it to be on the library shelf. If he wants to read it, I'll never stand in his way. The most I would do is warn him that he might find it upsetting. I don't give a rip that mentions masturbation. The main character could be getting it on with a hamster and I wouldn't care. I just think it's a horrible book. I didn't want to read it. Not even for Betsy Hearne. Why should he be forced to?

Granted, I am oversensitive to stories. It's my head, and I'd like some control over what gets dumped into it. I think anyone should have that control, but if I went to my kid's school and complained about the assignment, what do you think the result would be? The story on CNN would be "parent objects to masturbation in beloved book." I am pretty sure that, to the average reader, I'd be indistinguishable from Ms. Karkos.

Yes, we need to make kids read, even when they don't want to. That doesn't mean that we have the right to make them read any book we choose if we choose them carelessly. Katherine Patterson told me once how uncomfortable she was when teachers came to tell her how much they loved Bridge to Teribithia and that they assigned it to their third grade classes every year. She said she wasn't sure how to respond.

Monica Edinger had a good post about this a couple of month ago. I don't remember it all, but I remember that she suggested that it was important to consider the feelings of a Japanese boy in the class; the world wouldn't have ended if they'd skipped The Mikado that year. I was impressed that she sounded out her class every year before deciding to read Coraline by Gaiman to them.

I could go on, but I'll stop. I hope that you see what I mean about a reasoned discussion and how difficult it is, in today's climate, to have one.

The above comment was by me.

`h

I think the context of school makes a lot of difference, with a lot of internal differences, too: public school v. private school, in the library/in the classroom/required reading, etc.

In considering 'h's point, I'm trying to put myself in the shoes of the teacher. First, I would never teach The Chocolate War to seventh-graders. I don't think I'd teach it, period--there's just not enough going on there to be worth the time. But in another teacher's hands it could be far from a careless choice--she might have excellent reasons, and a first-rate teaching plan, to back her choice up. I guess I don't think it's a completely nutty choice, in other words. 'h, what would you do if faced with this example--have your child read another book? insist the teacher change her plans? move your kid to a different class? I think challenges to required reading (which is a concept I have no problem with) have to be resolved on a case by case basis.

I always forget The Chocolate War has masturbation, too.

Roger,

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-banbook20sep20,1,2081088.story?ctrack=1&cset=true

The link above is thanks to bookshelvesofdoom and leads to an article in the chicago trib. They aren't teaching The Chocolate War as literature. It looks more like anti-bullying Conscousness-raising. But I take your point entirely: these decisions are local. Maybe this is a great program. But that is my point, too. It's hard to tell from a distance what is going on, but nonetheless, all objections to a book are lumped together as censorship. It chills discussion.

I know that asking teachers to change books from year to year is asking them to create a new curriculum from scratch over and over. And new books have to be purchased. There are reasons why curriculums tend to be set in stone. Because they are of necessity one-size fits all, I think selections should be made conservatively, leaving some wiggle room for the oversensitive, and for the teacher's choices to change from year to year.


So what do I do? It's only just lately that I started to question my own complicity in sending my kids off to read books I'd resist reading myself. Now I have a don't ask, don't tell policy:

-You don't have to read all the books.
-You have a responsibility to your teacher and your classmates to support an environment of learning, so if you ever brag to your friends, or even mention, that I said you don't have to read all the books, I will kill you.
-I expect you to bullshit effectively. Listen in class, skim the text for details. If your grade takes a hit, we'll talk.
-If your teacher ever asks you point blank if you have done the reading, you must tell the truth. You can then refer them to me.

'h

I forget to say that I don't ask for alternate assignments. Toby Zeigler said it for me in The West Wing when he objected to prayer in schools and regected the idea that dissenting students could just be excused. "That's just another reason to beat up the Jewish kid during recess." Singling out kids is not a solution.

`h

Bookshelves of Doom is having an apropos discussion about what books people loved and which they hated when forced to read them in school. It just reinforces my feeling that there's not much sense arguing for a change in the curriculum. The book that drives your kid spare might be the one that another kid latches onto for life. Better that they read most of the syllabus and quietly duck the things that just aren't for them.

`h

As I did with Tristam Shandy, senior year of college. Too damned long.

Let us draw a veil over my short-comings in the class on Dickens and Eliot.

Look away Professor Thomas, look away.

`h

Well, I was overdosed on Jane Austen in high school and assumed I hated it all for far too long. And then, after enjoying the spate of Austen derived movies, I took out Pride and Prejudice and Persuasion and read them on long train trips to London and back.

Who knew I'd love them now? (And why hadn't anyone told me they were funny?)

So if I'd insisted the books be put away, censored, stuck under book shelves, barbequed, or otherwise
disappeared way back in the Cretaceous when I was at school, look what I would have missed. Look what those young readers who were smarter than me at the time would have missed.

Now if only someone could help me love Proust. . .

Jane

Sorry to be late answering ... By "books that have not been returned" I mean those that may have been lost, damaged, and yes, even taken by a patron.

While it is indeed stealing, not every book that goes missing from a library does in the very public manner as is being discussed - with the blatent purpose of making sure someone else is unable to read the title.

Interesting that she has done this so close to banned books week.

Why is having to read books one doesn't care for that much worse than having to do math one doesn't care for or imitate artists one doesn't like...for every topic within a subject, there will be people who don't care for it. I didn't care for many of the books I was required to read in high school. But I didn't expect all my teachers in every subject to cater to my personal tastes. Would that I *could* have said, "this calculus business does nothing for me. I'm sticking with geometry." Or, "I really hate impressionism. I'm going to study surrealism." Etc. No, I don't think it's the end of the world to read "bad" books. For one thing, I learn a lot aboput good writing from reading bad writing. For another, as Jane Y. alludes to above, we sometimes have to sample something several times before we can appreciate it. Also? There are lots of less than pleasant experiences we have in life. Reading a book one doesn't love is hardly traumatic. A book doesn't as much fill our head with ideas as we pull them out of books.

"Reading a book one doesn't love is hardly traumatic."

I disagree. Or rather, I disagree that reading a book can't be traumatic, not that a book you merely "don't love," would be. Have you tried Elie Wiesel's Night? Books are powerful. They change the world. They move us, they inspire us. They change us as we read them. Sometimes they eviscerate us. They give us nightmares. They leave us throwing up on the bathroom floor at eleven at night. Maybe not you; of course, we are all different. I just mean . . . some of us.

`h

lynn,

On the topic of JoAnn Karkos and banned book week: It's a stupid stunt. Unless her whole object isn't to get the book banned, but just to get her name in the paper. I am starting to wonder how many of these people just want their fifteen minutes of fame. Wasn't there someone mentioned on the ASIF website who wanted to sue the library for emotional damages who, coincidentally(!) was going bankrupt at the time?

`h

'h: the smug superiority of your response has dripped all over the page. Of course books move me: good ones much more so than bad ones. Perhaps you really are a more impassioned reader than I, but I recall very few assigned texts which moved me very far in any direction, much less to the point of throwing up. If I hated a book, I skimmed or Cliff notes-d it. I don't think it was a soul-killing exercise; in fact, it taught me some good things about sucking it up: the whole world doesn't revolve around me, and that's just fine.
(my name didn't save in my comment above, the one that attempted to put the horror of bad books in reasonable perspective.)

hope,

Thank you. I have a hard time judging how I come across in a conversation like this and I appreciate your response.

`h

Take THAT, Roger. And THAT! And THAT! Now, are you STILL proud of yourself for publishing those nasty articles? Well, take THAT!!

How about sending her a nice thank you note for returning the check and adding, just under your signature, "Matt. 6:1-6"

--m

All right, yes, she sounds as though she might have the letter more than the spirt of the thing. But... eh... does this really warrant a public airing? I feel a little like this post is trying to goad readers into coming out and making fun of the annoying kid in the class, you know?

I can't wait for the Jenna Bush Book! Oh, and she has another- With her Mother- Coming in The Spring! God Bless Harpercollins!
(And the Horn Book,too)

I must agree with anonymous number 3, and wonder, would you have posted this if the subscriber had been Hindu? Buddhist? Muslim? Jewish? Or do those religions warrant more consideration?


SR

This post may be intemperate (like that's never happened before) but my irritation came not from the fact that the subscriber was a Christian (as am I) but from her completely gratuitous mention of that fact. Had we published something that she objected to on religious grounds that would have made sense, but, as it was, she was implying that any Horn Book discussion of scrotums or sexuality or censorship were an attack on her religion, which they aren't. I was also bothered by the arrogance of her assumption of the moral high ground, that a Christian would of course do the right thing in returning the money, as if a Jew or Muslim or Buddhist wouldn't. Similar moral preening on the part of any of the latter would be met by me with the same attitude.

Well, I have been hearing the praises of this publication, and upon the recommendation of my fabulous local librarian, I logged on to check you guys out. She couldn't say enough about the quality of the articles, and the professionalism she appreciated therin.

I must say this blog post came as a bit of a shock.

I guess I will simply read the periodical at the library instead. This blog is a little too personal for me. I guess that is what blogs are, anyway.

Megan Krejci
Egana

Mr. Sutton, I see your point about the moral high ground. Thank you for the clarification. One of the reasons I enjoy this blog is that you are always willing to explain.

But you are wrong about Kathy Griffith. She is never funny.

SR

I go back and forth on KG. Gotta be in the right mood.

I think she was simply admitting that without Christianity, she wouldn't be able to perform the simple acts of basic decency that some of us manage to do without reference to religion. I admire her humility.

Your incessant ridiculing of Christians grows old. Can your satisfy this hunger of yours by publicly badgering someone else for a while? Cat lovers? Left-handed people?

Ah, does RS pick on Christians or not? Can we move on, right now, before we all end up way the hell/heck off to the side of why we're checking out the Horn Book blog?

Next topic, please!

Also, note that the sinistrals get plenty of grief already.

I am a left-handed Christian so please don't make me start with the self-hate! Cats, however . . . but yes, let's move on.

The utter humorlessness of the "religious" folk is what always gets to me. I bet Jesus was a lot more fun to hang with.

Me too! I'll take water into wine any day! Man, I really do love that guy.

Upon clicking the Mrs. Voldemort link, I did my first ever spit take.

Thanks for that.

Rock on, Roger. If you didn't have opinions, why would anyone read your blog?

And *that* is the perfect post for a Friday.

From the AP story:

"...the Bush book...according to HarperCollins, "depicts a mischievous little boy who likes to do everything but read."

At least the girls won't have far to look for their source material.

Snort! Mrs. Voldemort. Too funny!

That's Lady Voldemort to you.

Oh - again, I should never read your post whilst in public. Loud cackling makes all heads turn.

Mrs. Voldemort, indeed!

"Brainwashing!"
--Alan Colmes, co-host of Fox News "Hannity & Colmes"
(Note: Coming from a liberal like Alan, we take that as a compliment!)


This was a blurb on the page advertising the liberals under the bed book. Do you think the book is brainwashing? Is King and King brainwashing? Is there any way we could get people to stop writing really stupid didactic books? Can't it be prosecuted as some kind of child abuse?

`h

Well, we can't prosecute them, but if somebody wants to buy me a plane ticket I'll go out there and put somebody in a headlock.

Though actually the smarter course of action would be to outwrite the bastards.

Mrs. Voldemort. Hah! The perfect end to a Friday evening.

P.S. I've had people call me out for politics on the blog too.

When I went to the article about Laura Bush's "book," it was sharing space with a Bring Back Don Imus ad. Beautiful.

So, it's late, and it took me a while to figure out who Mrs. Voldemort was, but when I did, I also did a spit take. That was the biggest laugh I've had all week. And love the Curious George costume too. Thanks for the giggles.

I was recently chastised for political comments in a public children's book thingie, so thank you for this post. The Republicans have all the power--the least we can do is speak our minds at every available opportunity.

Who's the helpful friend, Neville Chamberlain?

I suppose your helpful friend hasn't read any Sendak lately.

But seriously, what could be more political than Mrs. Voldemort's bland exercises in American history non(sic)fiction for kids?

Mr. Murdoch- The Bush's- Harpercollins- Oh, My!

Oh, please don't stop with the political commentary.

"Mrs. Voldemort" just about gave me a coffee noser. I hate hearing about this rash of books by politicians' relatives. It makes me feel icky.

So I suppose Karl Rove will write a book now ....

sinc Rove has just given his two-weeks notice, and didn't say it was to spend more time with his family, we must assume that he plans to write a children's book. I can't wait for HC to publish it

Yeah: I Don't Just Look Like a Big Baby, I AM One, illus. by Gahan Wilson.

The Washington Post had an op-ed this Sunday by one of its staffers on how both sides try to brainwash the young via children's books (the liberal under the bed book was balanced by one titled "Why Mommy is a Democrat"--here's the link to the article: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/10/AR2007081001691.html ). The author's larger point, the veracity of which would be difficult to confirm, is that the MySpace generation takes a cafeteria approach to politics, agreeing to gay rights and the need for health care coverage, but opposed to abortion rights and optimistic about our chances in Iraq. Not easily compartmentalized. Yeah, right. I don't actually buy it.

But back to the question of writing doctrinaire picture books, I guess from a parenting standpoint, you have a right to indoctrinate your kids any way you choose--once they get old enough, they'll do what they want anyway.

From a book-writing and reviewing standpoint, however, the best books are the ones that ask questions rather than give answers. That's not to say that writers can't have a particular viewpoint--I wouldn't say Tobin Anderson is neutral in his Octavius Nothing book--but good writers respect the work children have to do exploring the world for themselves. The only question is whether the author will appeal to children's more noble instincts in sorting their experiences, or will indulge the little rugrats in their selfish xenophobia. Hmmm...

ALB

P.S.
I took a look at the sample pages of "Why Mommy Is a Democrat" posted online, and based on that, the book is h-h-h-h-AWFUL. So, really bad (and poorly illustrated) didactic children's books are bipartisan.

ALB

No parent EVER HAS a RIGHT to indoctrinate their children.

Who said that the ability to indoctrinate was a "right" of being a parent?

There is SUCH disrespect for children in that statement.

I don't dare comment on what I would really like to spout off about Republican OR Democrat picture books because I might then REALLY lose control and press the submit button unwisely too soon.

My political leanings? Duck for President, every time, folks, Duck for President.....and I am a little more serious about that than what you might see on the surface.

It might be disrespectful to children stating that but is doesn't make it less true. Parents are always going to influence their children in the way the see the world (their politics) and deciding what childrens books to read is just one of many ways.

The right of the parents comes from different places. The one I care about is the UN Convention on the right of the child, Article 14:
1. States Parties shall respect the right of the child to freedom of thought, conscience and religion.

2. States Parties shall respect the rights and duties of the parents and, when applicable, legal guardians, to provide direction to the child in the exercise of his or her right in a manner consistent with the evolving capacities of the child.[...]



The point I think Roger was making is that childrens books are never non-political. So choose consciously..

Wow! A smug, bow-tied "expert" railing about them nasty Republicans!

Original. Not.

Though actually the smarter course of action would be to outwrite the bastards.

Remember, kids: if someone diagrees with you, they're bastards! Not merely wrong, but evil! (And don't flatter yourself, cookie. If this is any indication, you couldn't write a grocery list.)

The Republicans have all the power--the least we can do is speak our minds at every available opportunity.

Yeah, the GOP has all the power in academia, all right. Why, a poor ol' liberal can't get a word in edgewise on blogs like this!

Please.

Hey, Roger: grow up.

Yes, because scattershot, anonymous sniping is so much more mature.

Yes, because scattershot, anonymous sniping is so much more mature.

Oof! Torn apart by your rapier wit!Nicely played, old man, nicely played!

Look, Rog, it's your blog and you can fill it whatever ivory-tower notion that's filling your head at the moment. But don't expect not to get upbraided occasionally for your catty comments; after all, not everybody who reads the blog is going to walk in your lockstep. I mean, referring to a politician's wife as "Mrs Voldemort"? Meow. (It's ironic, that, considering your disdain for the Harry Potter books.)

Wanna talk politics? Go ahead. But don't start crying foul because someone dares to disagree with you.

Who's crying foul? You write as if you've made some kind of brave, lonely stand here, but disagreement, polite and otherwise, is a frequent visitor to this blog. So, ah, join the crowd. What you haven't done, though, is advance any kind of a point--what is your point?

I see you're refusing to put up my previous post, Rog. Truth hurts, eh?

Then again, it's not really your fault. Self-absorbed academics like yourself don't hear a lot of dissenting opinions in the ol' echo chamber, and when they do it throws them into quite a tizzy. Take a deep breath and watch some tapes of Hillary. You'll feel better in the morning.

Huh? What previous post? This blog is unmoderated and I haven't taken down a comment since some porn spam a few weeks ago.

I don't think this is a repub/democrat thing--as ALB pointed out above, that lefty-counter to Help, Mom . . . is as lame as its target, and Hillary's Takes A Village book was no prize either. Lynne Cheney's books for children have the virtue of supplying usable historical information but do so in a way well-trodden by nonfiction series publishers for decades.

What exactly are you defending?

I don't think this is a repub/democrat thing

Then why turn it into one with your "Mrs Voldemort" crack? Trying to impress your fellow revolutionistas? And why won't you address any of my points, beginning with the fact you're quoting a series of books which you clearly despise?

You haven't made any points. You've called me a smug, bow-tie wearing liberal, which is a more or less accurate observation but not a point. You call me an academic, not true, and, again, not a point. You think I shouldn't make an HP allusion because I'm not a fan. If that's your point, it's a dumb one: did Khomeini's calling the U.S. "the Great Satan" make him a Satanist? Otherwise, you've just heaped scorn on other commentors and whined about being oppressed by liberals. Ann Coulter would tell you to grow a pair.

Ann Coulter would tell you to grow a pair.

Nice try, Rog, but I think Ann Coulter is nuts. So are you, apparently, if this your idea of discourse.

Why attack a politician's wife just because you disagree with the politician in question? Who are you trying to impress?

I'd tell you to stick to writing what you know about, but I'm not quite sure what that is. (It's not the ability to string together coherent thoughts, certainly.)

I weep for the Horn Book and the children's authors who have to hew to your ideological line to get published in it. Pathetic.

You weep . . . sweet Jesus. All I can tell you is to pull out a hanky, dry those tears, and read the Horn Book. THEN we'll talk.

“Torn apart by your rapier wit! Nicely played, old man, nicely played!”

Who’s writing this stuff, Captain Hook? En garde! Actually, I remember stealing that rapier wit line from a friend in high school and back then at least it worked like a charm. Glad to see that there’s still some respect for the classics! Anyway, look, the point, Anon, no pun intended, is that you may have some things to say but it’s hard to see what they are for all of the (surely gratifying) anonymous outrage. Rein it in and make an argument.

I'm no Baby Einstein fan, but that article is pathetic! Since when is vocabulary the sole indicator of intelligence? Did the study measure the infants' spatial awareness or anything else the videos purport to improve?

Yes! I vote for the dumb parents --> TV is thought to be good for you --> dumb children theory.

That's how it looks to play out in my library, anyway. The parents who come in and demand (never request, always demand) the Baby Einstein DVDs are almost never the ones who read to their children or spend time with thier kids coloring or doing puzzles.

The parents who demand the Baby Einstein DVDs are, in my experience, much more often the ones who rush in, shout at their children, shout at the staff, grab the DVDs from the spinner rack, and rush out (grumbling that we never have enough Baby Einstein DVDs.)

The nice parents, the ones who read to their children and spend time doing puzzles with them, the ones who speak respectfully to the staff, are much more likely to take out...

Um. Okay, I don't know, but I'm going to observe and see what they're taking. (Which DVDs, I mean. I already know they're taking books galore.)

i wonder how many people will read that article and take away: "BABYS SHOULD WATCH AMERICAN IDOL"

Cheryl, that sounds like MEAN parents versus NICE parents! Which kind of goes along with the whole Baby Einstein premise, raising your child to have a competitive advantage, but being too competitive yourself to actually want to spend time with your kids.

Agreed. Or a lot of grief.

I suppose the hope is that if the kid spends enough time propped before the tube then later in life he’ll end up with a middling job at, say, a patent office. Not a guaranteed route to genius, but it's something.

Is there really no room at all for parents who read to their kids AND show them (limited) Baby Einsteins?

And play games, do Play-Doh with them, and take them to the playground (the kids, not the videos)?

Guilty as charged!
--DF

DF - I'm also guilty of using the Baby Einstein series -- Baby Mozart in particular -- along with all the other things you mention. But I never thought the videos actually were teaching my babies anything. Baby Mozart just had the awesome effect of spellbinding them for a little bit when I needed a sanity break.

Believing that sitting your infant in front of a looping video of synthesized classical music and puppets is teaching and nurturing your child is the problem, I believe. Not the use of the videos.

The Am. Acad. of Peds. says no TV before age two. That makes Baby Einstein and Teletubbies evil because under two is their core market. But isn't it a little like taking "What to Expect When You're Expecting" so seriously that you actually bake (and eat) those gawdawful sugar-free muffins? If the only way to get a shower before noon is to pop in Baby Einstein, then chat baby up the rest of the day to cover the lost vocabulary. --m

I thought that Einstein himself didn't start talking until he was four years old: this is one of those oft-cited markers of his early exceptionalism. (Maybe I made that up?) So therefore if Baby Einstein videos inhibit speech development they're just doing their job.

My question is whether the world can actually handle any more Einstein's since the theories of the original one did after all lead to such things as nuclear weapons. (As Bronowski observed, human ethical development doesn't keep pace with human scientific knowledge.)

I would much prefer Baby Buddha videos.

Or Baby Gandhi!

Baby Mother Theresa!

And then there's always Baby Baby Jesus, which sounds too much like a de-wop song.

Actually I don't believe that Einstead exactly pulled down the big bucks, and certainly the parents in question must have some sort of financial success in mind for their child. Really they want to be rearing some sort of Science Nerd who makes a lot of money right? So: Baby Bill Gates videos might be a good profit opportunity?

Baby Edison.

Jeanne, you made my day with "Baby Baby Jesus." Thanks!

It is unfortunate that the television has come to play such a negative role in our children's life. Yet I recall the words of my step-father when he referred to the television as "The Bube Tube". It should now be called "The baby-sitter". However, a television is like the baby-sitter who allows the children to water the indoor plants with a garden hose. Choosing a baby-sitter with the credentials of a Charles Manson and then blaiming the sitter for your child's bad behavior is like putting a loaded gun to your head and pulling the trigger to see if it will work. Parents need to take responsability for what their children watch and then they should watch far less of it. A child who is read to is ten times more likely to do well in school and a hundred times more likely to succeed in life.

In Greenland, when television was non-existant (less than ten years ago) people read, families had book night in, and their children thrived.

Books are the foundation of a solid education. It is up to parents to lay down the bricks.

Patrick Wellman

Enjoyed the post, love the comments. Always something to think about. And laugh!

Now just as long as we don't end up with Baby Paris Hilton.

I read the baby Jesus comment and here we are back at those Christmas books again...

I did laugh at the Baby Paris Hilton one-Too! I think she really has a kid book or two on the way. Oh, No that's Cheech Marin! (My Mistake again!)

Please no more Baby, Baby Jesus videos. Or big ones either. There are far too many of those out there already. I'm serious about that. And it's embarrassing to be a Christian and know such things actually exist.

With the profits thereof filling the pockets of rich Christians.

Oh, sure -- blame Santa.

The question begs to be asked: Does the Santa suffering from flatulence have a dog named Walter?

Not related, but where else to post it? Harry Potter fans MUST read an article in the August 13/20 issue of THE NATION. "Harry Potter and the Half-baked Epic" by Lakshmi Chaudhry. Hilarious!

magical legs or what --- underwear?

Oh Roger, you are always good for a laugh.

Thank you for the forewarning.

Are you saying those were published? Seriously?

Yes. I didn't name the guilty, because, after all, it's Christmas. Let the dreidel ring!

Roger,

I have a few questions I hope might be able to answer for me:

1. Is the dreidel pinata filled with potato latkes and applesauce?

2. Are the magical legs made of flesh and blood, peppermint sticks...or are they robotic?

3. Does Mrs. Claus put a bottle of Beano or Gas-X in Santa's stocking?

Inquiring minds want to know.

I have a Dreidel and Pinata book- also a Crippled Lamb one-Does that count?

So I will pass on those, but the Santa one will leave all the boys laughing! Does it come with a plush Santa doll that does not Ho Ho Ho, but you know? HA!

I am actually looking at fall lists right now. I see Audrey Wood's A Dog Needs a Bone (Scholastic), Mem Fox's Where the Giant Sleeps (Harcourt), Mo Willems' Knuffle Bunny, Too (Hyperion), Sherman Alexie's The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (Little Brown), Cynthia Rylant's Walt Disney: Cinderella (Disney Press), Avi's Iron Thunder- The Battle of The Monitor and the Merimac (Hyperion), and of course I can't wait for Jon Scieszka's Cowboy and Octupus (Viking).

My son and I can't wait!

A.D.

If we could get all three of those concepts into a single book, it just might work.

I smell . . . Caldecott!

Oh, my, my, my! And are we to call these imaginative books? And these got into PRINT?

There has GOT to be diference somewhere between imaginative and just plain stupid, I suppose...but my imaginator fails me right now as to how to precisely define books with themes/plots like these.

I hope these sorts of rejects don't go to charities. I hope, fervently, they get recycled with giant robot shredders.

This may be slightly off topic, but i was in LA recently and saw a giant billboard outside a church that said, "What Would Jesus Drink? Free Starbucks after Sunday Mass!!!"

It may not be kids book related, but it is another Christmas figure being coopted into the realm of the absurd...

I'm surprised that there are no TRANSFORMER books.

Fartsy Claus?!?

Oh, lord...you've got to be joking me.