Old home week

Didn't kiss no pigs but did have a glorious drive down (up? up and down?) Sunset Blvd. from the Getty Museum to the heart of Hollywood. (Unfortunately, the only stars we saw were of the reality-show stripe, Bruce and Kris Jenner, sitting in the booth next to ours at Beso, the restaurant managed by son Ethan. I had to be told who they were. Ethan also introduced us to Beso chef Todd English, who arrived at the restaurant with a bevy of beauties.)

The work part of the week went fine. I spoke about Mommy/Daddy-loves-you-best books at Pomona to an audience of enthusiastic students, profs, booksellers and writers (Susan Patron, Candace Ryan, and Megan Whalen Turner graciously attended.) After lunch (our thirty-year-old favorite, patty melts at Walters, which has gotten way fancier) the next day with my old Pitzer bestie Ruth, we went over to the campus for a rather more intime (read: sparsely attended) but lively discussion of censorship with Susan and then went for a walk around the campus, which has doubled in size since the 70s. The students were very polite to us Olds, and even praised the cafeteria food. (The all-you-can-eat ice cream, rumored to be a string attached to a bequest, was gone, but I noted that two vegan specialities were offered on each menu.) Right: Susan Patron and me.



And son Dorian and his wife were very gracious to drive out to SFO for our stopover on the way home, bringing number-one-grandson Miles along for our adoration. When did he turn from a baby into a little boy? (He's not even a year yet, so it must be the haircut.)




And now I'm back and pondering the in-box drama that is the ALSC discussion of lowering its age level of service from fourteen to thirteen. It's amazing what can draw fire from the dragon ladies' throats!

Eat these words

"Terrific Baby" cake by Jennifer Brabander for Elissa Gershowitz's baby shower today at the office. Photo by Lolly Robinson. Elissa is married to Ken Silber and we really want them to name the baby Wilbur. As you can see.

See Baby Miles. See Baby Miles Read.

(I take it as a mark of long-delayed maturity that I now find holding a baby more rewarding than playing with a puppy.)

Shana tova!

Miles and me on Rosh Hashanah.

Debating Black Books

Due to popular demand, we're posting Lelac Almagor's And Stay Out of Trouble: Narratives for Black Urban Children from the September/October special issue on Trouble. And to further, er, trouble the waters, we have a response to the article from writer Sharon G. Flake. I'd be interested to hear any comments in the comments.

As previously mentioned, I am going to California to see our boys, their wives and the new grandson. Kitty and Lolly will be here to keep you all in line and I'll be back next week. Au reservoir!

[Update: Lelac Almagor responds]

Here's our grandson!

Miles Henkels Asch, born to Julie and Dorian Asch on June 20th at 12:44PM PST, 7 lbs. 6 oz., 19" long.

Back from TLA,

and man, I do love those Texas librarians (notable exceptions aside). Forthright and friendly in nature, enthusiastic and smart about books. Although our booth was down by the clothing and jewelry department (which I'll never understand: "What, this? Just a little thing I picked up at the librarians' convention.") I was kept plenty busy, but had nothing like the success of our sales rep Katrina Elmer, completely fabulous at getting people to stop at our booth and then roping them in for a subscription or two. We weren't even giving away candy. Also had a lively dinner with Randy and Andrew (aka my bosses) from Media Source along with Viki Ash, Betty Carter, Katie Turner and Dick Abrahamson, great Texas book people all. Next week takes me to Ohio for a board meeting, soon followed by a trip to Chicago for the Sutherland Lecture, again there for ALA (thank goodness it remains my favorite city) and there's a grandchild arriving in California soon, too. Phew.

Marcia, Marcia, Marcia

Maureen McCormick won't be seeing Tropic Thunder because she doesn't like the plotline involving an actor's bid for an Oscar by playing "Simple Jack," a--as Tropic Thunder calls it--"retard.":

I want to add my two cents to the opinions on whether it's offensive to the mentally challenged. I know Ben Stiller has said that he's making fun of actors, not people with disabilities. Still, the movie is geared toward a younger crowd and I fear a lot of those teenagers and college students will leave the theater thinking “retard” is an okay word to use.

Where to start? First, go see the movie if you want to have an opinion of it. Second, don't patronize "the younger crowd" (sounds like something Alice would say!) by assuming that they view movies as life manuals. Were big sisters the world over corrupted by how mean you could be to Jan? The assumption that "they" won't "get it" underestimates young people, prompts an impulse to control what they see/hear/read, and infantilizes the rest of us. It's a power trip.

The controversy about this movie reminds me of the worst-titled children's book ever, Someone Called Me a Retard Today . . . and My Heart Felt Sad. While it's difficult to argue with the book's theme--name-calling is hurtful--it missed the point that "retard" is an insult thrown around promiscuously, so much so that the term "mentally retarded" is no longer used to describe those individuals who actually have mental disabilities, a point excellently made by YouTube's Retarded Policeman and his brother.

If the substitution is that simple, there's something wrong with the sentence.

Another one from the Guardian, about a little furor surrounding Jacqueline Wilson's latest, My Sister Jodie:

"The word 'twat' was used in context. It was meant to be a nasty word on purpose, because this is a nasty character," said a spokesperson for Random House. "However, Jacqueline doesn't want to offend her readers or her readers' parents, so when the book comes to be reprinted the word will be replaced with twit."

Yet another G-word

I received an email yesterday from a librarian who hated our reviews because she thought they had too much plot summary, but she was really pissed that we "almost always give away the ending."

Her first point is debatable--how much is too much?--but her second is demonstrably false while containing a truth: sometimes, we do give away the ending. As I explained in my response to her, Horn Book reviews are not written for the same people for whom the books we review are intended. The reviews are for grownups; the books are for kids. Sometimes the grownup wants to know if the dog dies.

There's a bigger, probably incendiary, question raised by this particular exchange. How do we feel about grownups who read children's books as if they weren't? That is, people who peruse the Horn Book like another person reads the Times Book Review, looking for a new book to read? As annoying as adults who dismiss children's books as unworthy of attention can be, I also feel my jaw clench when a fellow adult tells me that he or she prefers children's books to adult books because they have better writing or values or stories. This is just sentimental ignorance.

I'm reminded of the ruckus in SLJ some years back when a library school professor wrote that l.s. students like to take children's literature classes because the reading is so easy, "like eating popcorn." You can imagine the heated response, but I think she had a point. While noting the exceptions of James Patterson on the one hand and William Mayne on the other, children's books tend to be easier and thus potentially "fun" for adults in a way they tend not to be for children, an incongruence librarians need to remember, not dissolve. Whatever whoever chooses to read is their business, of course, but adults whose taste in recreational reading ends with the YA novel need to grow up.

Uh-oh

So Baby Einstein is actually bad for babies? While this study will probably only provoke more rounds of the coffee-hurts-you-coffee-helps-you kinds of further studies, I'd love to let the Freakonomics guys loose on this one. There are so many other correlations: if the Baby Einstein videos don't do what they promise, it could be because the parents don't use them as instructed (be warned, that link plays plastic classical music over and over again, trying to make you as smart as El Divo) or because dumb parents who think TV is good for babies pass their dumb genes on to their children (harsh, but that's Freakonomics for ya). Always nice to see Disney get a little grief, though.

When good kids show bad judgment

Today's NYT article about the popular Junie B. Jones books brings up a number of reasons adults don't like the series, mostly citing its demonstrations of bullying and other bad behavior. But my heart belong to a Mr. Lewis Bartell, a man mindful of the future:

“My dad doesn’t like the grammar,” said the Bartells’s youngest, Mollie, 9. “And I guess that’s important, because maybe when you grow up and you’re at work and you say, ‘I runned,’ people will get annoyed at you.”

Mollie, that is so true. In fact, I'm already kind of annoyed at you at nine.