Listen to the Children When They Are Holding Sharp Sticks!

The listservs are ablaze this morning with talk about a children's knitting club being banned from the library. I'm guessing the ban will be lifted by the end of the day; meanwhile, I sure wish I could knit--it would be great to make myself useful while watching the synchronized diving, and, since we're currently reviewing Christmas and other winter holiday books, I'm lusting for a nice black cashmere scarf. (Um, is cashmere knit?)

But enough about you

This idea of the internet as a solipsistic wonderland--oh wow! You're reading my blog!--really gained ground this weekend with two of our leading internet magazines--Salon and Slate--each using the premier of The Golden Compass as a springboard for people to talk about themselves while pretending to do otherwise.

I have a lot of respect for Donna Freitas's work on His Dark Materials, but on Salon she unconscionably sets up Catholic Leaguer Bill Donahue as the Grand Inquisitor and herself as Galileo: "Allow me to plead my case, for I think I am innocent. (Though I fear I might be on trial, or even be found guilty without a trial.)" Stop, Donna, we need the wood.

And I would really like to see some documentation for "Catholic principals, librarians and teachers all across the United States and Canada are being told by their diocese to remove "His Dark Materials" from their shelves and classroom curricula." I can find three instances of The Golden Compass being removed from Catholic schools (two in Canada and in Oshkosh, Wisconsin), and in none of them was the diocese involved: trustees, principals and one benighted librarian pulled the book without orders from above. Of course there are probably other, quieter instances of the book being removed (as that's how it's usually done, in public and parochial libraries alike) but the point is that the Catholic Church is engaged in no war with Philip Pullman and no one is being threatened with excommunication. It's just weenie Bill Donahue calling attention to himself via his self-administered interviews, and Freitas falling right into his trap by making him seem more important than he is.

But Freitas, at least, does have a point to make, and it's an eloquent and important one, about the feast of religious inquiry in Pullman's trilogy. Emily Bazelon writing for Slate, on the other hand, explains that she's not going to encourage her sons to read Pullman's trilogy because she really dug Flowers in the Attic even though her mother said it was dreck. (Thanks to Kelly Herold for the link.) Did I mention that I'm going to see The Golden Compass tonight and Nobody Listens to Andrew used to be my favorite book?

Congrats to Sarah!

(photo courtesy of CNW Group)

Longtime Horn Book contributor (I swear, she must have started writing the "News from the North" column when she was twelve) Sarah Ellis has won the TD Canadian Children's Literature Award for Odd Man Out. And, in an oh-let's-be-vulgar shout out to any civic-minded U.S. banking corporation, she gets 20,000 smackers. Canadian, which is like a million in our money, right?

With Our Face Sketched On It Once or Twice

Gail Gauthier has a link to a valuable article about book reviewing. What interests me most about Alex Good's piece is that much of what he says about the particularities of Canadian book reviewing speak also to children's book reviewing: both often default to defensive postures re their respective embattled territories:

Do these factors – the small-pond effect, anxiety over blowback, our politeness and deference to authority – contribute to our culture of book reviewing? How could they not? They all help push our reviewing into being more positive. And they come piled on top of the aforementioned doping effect, our consumerist culture’s resistance to criticism, and institutional strictures against being snarky. It is not just the entertainment value that consequently drops off (is there a free-standing book review anywhere as consistently dull as Globe Books?), but the level of critical insight. Reviews become abstract, academic, and non-evaluative. Safe.

Have a look. I'm also interested in what he says about the increased pressure of the marketplace, in that reviewers today are often expected to predict and applaud the bestseller, that a popular book is a good book by virtue of the fact that lots of people like it.