Editorial
Family Focus

elcome to Horn Book’s focus on the family. (Why should James Dobson get to have all the fun?) In this special issue we bring you a variety of perspectives on the use and reading of children’s books in the home. We hope that the librarians, teachers, and booksellers among our subscribers will share this issue with the parents they know (and we’ve included a how-to article by Horn Book veterans Ann Flowers and Mary Burns written specifically for parents). When parents ask me if they need to subscribe to the Horn Book, I tell them that if their interest in children’s books extends beyond their children, then yes, absolutely. But if they simply want recommendations for good books, the magazine may contain more than they need to know, and they might be better off making a firm alliance with their local children’s booksellers and librarians (both of whom, I hope, can’t live without us). We do hope that this month’s Horn Book is one that can help bring all interested parties together.

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In our cozy visions of families reading together in front of the fireplace, let’s not forget that reading is ultimately a private experience. I’m worried that the library profession’s reaction to Karen Jo Gounaud’s “Family Friendly Library” organization (a small group that has gotten its biggest and best publicity from those who oppose it) is leading us to promote an ideal of “family friendliness” that may come back to haunt us. In response to Gounaud’s complaint that public libraries govern themselves with policies that are hostile to traditional family values, we say, over and over, that libraries are already “family friendly.” That’s true. Then we say that we promote family values by having comprehensive collections, allowing each family, regardless of social or political stripe, to find what it wants. Also true. But here’s the kicker: in our rush to assure parents of their “rights,” we say that we welcome them to accompany their children to the library in order to stand guard — whoops, I mean, provide guidance — over what their children select from the shelves. Not only is this not fair to kids, who need as much intellectual breathing room as the rest of us, it is shortsighted in the development of citizens who will eventually have to leave home and think for themselves. Just because parents have the legal right to control their children’s reading does not mean that we should encourage them to do so.

I recently argued with our proofreader over the word family. This disagreement was not political; it was grammatical: does family take the singular (“the family went to the library, where it watched a movie and checked out books”) or the plural (“the family went to the library, where they watched a movie and checked out books”)? The singular, said the proofreader, and she had the rule book to back her up. But it sounds weird. There are all kinds of ways to make that sentence work better — but as long as each member of the family gets to check out exactly what he or she wants, I’m happy.

—Roger Sutton

From the March/April 1997 issue of The Horn Book Magazine