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From
the January/February 2004 issue of The Horn Book Magazine Letters to the Editor I am writing to affirm Brian Alderson’s article, “Message in a Bottle” (September/October 2003 Horn Book). I think that the blurring of genres between children’s literature and young adult literature evokes what Neil Postman calls “the disappearance of childhood” and Valerie Suransky, “the erosion of childhood.” We seem to be returning to an earlier era when childhood was undifferentiated from adulthood, when children were vulnerable to the vagaries of the larger world. Was the Victorian vision of the boundaries of childhood but a brief secret garden? While my conscience struggles with whose children’s literature — which story gets told — I am more secure with what children’s literature is art. In Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, James Joyce makes a distinction between “proper art” and “improper art”: proper art really belongs to art, in search of aesthetic arrest; improper art is in service of something that is not art, in search of eliciting desire, loathing, or fear. “Didactic pornography” is for Joyce the preaching of a social doctrine, fancied up with porno dress or undress. To me, we need to question whether the book offered as a blurred youth genre is art, at least the art we want to offer children to create in their own imaginative possibilities. Thank you, Brian Alderson, for your message in a bottle, which reached this shore. Anne Lundin
I want to thank Robin Smith (September/October 2003 Horn Book) for saying so eloquently what I have tried to say to all of the teachers in my school for years. Teachers who feel a passion for books can pass it along by reading aloud every day in the classroom. Recently, my faculty gathered on an early fall morning in the library media center for a “Book Breakfast” to look at the beautiful new books purchased for the coming year. Before I started any book talks, I handed out a copy of Robin’s article, “Teaching New Readers to Love Books.” If these busy teachers read no other professional article this year, I wanted them to read this. If I could get them to read Robin’s article, I knew that they would be convinced of the power of reading aloud every day to their students. When I read Robin’s article, I noticed that she and I loved the same books, and I want the teachers in my school to read those books to their students — The Year of Miss Agnes and Did You Carry the Flag Today, Charley? Robin explains in the article how the entire learning community and their interactions throughout the day are shaped by the literature they share. Classroom teachers often do not realize the power they have when they read a book aloud to their students. Robin explains how she grew as a reader, as a teacher, and how she is bringing along a new generation of readers. I wish that this article could be read by every person preparing to walk into a classroom in America. Thank you, Horn Book, for publishing this type of article. This article not only helps library media specialists — it helps classroom teachers. Robin — what are you reading aloud now? I hope that Robin Smith will write more articles for the Horn Book that will help classroom teachers and library media specialists. Carole Prendergast |
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