From the January/February 2007 issue of The Horn Book Magazine

Letters to the Editor

September/October 2006 Horn Book

Susan Cooper (“One Week in August”) writes that in 1986 “the sky fell in” at the Center for the Study of Children’s Literature at Simmons College. Actually, despite the departure of the founding faculty, the Center has for the past two decades continued to unify its original vision with the mission of the college to join theory and practice. Our graduate programs place children’s literature in historical, cultural, literary, and critical context. Three decades of alumni work across the professions as artists and writers, teachers and librarians, publishers and critics, award committee members, academics and scholars.

No, the sky did not fall — but the Center did change. Even as our central mission remains, we transform constantly. In recent years, we’ve launched a series of curricular initiatives that extend the opportunities for students to bridge the literary interrogation of children’s literature with the practice of connecting books to children and young adults. Students can elect to complete dual degrees that combine the children’s literature degree with a professional degree in teaching and soon, we hope, in library science. In addition to the original Master of Arts in Children’s Literature, we now offer a Master of Fine Arts in Writing for Children.

I assumed the directorship about a year ago, following Susan P. Bloom, who directed the program from 1986 to 2005. Although I completed a second master’s, then a doctorate, the degree that most identifies me as a teacher and grounds me as a scholar is the MA in Children’s Literature that I completed at Simmons in 1984. Today, as I interview students for graduate work in children’s literature, I daily hear their passion and their drive to study children’s and young adult literature with the same kind of acuity, depth, and intellectual engagement that I sought — and found — so long ago.

Cathryn M. Mercier
Boston, Massachusetts

I love the Horn Book and faithfully read all of the articles and reviews. But shame on you for not noticing in Robin Smith’s “A Letter to Parents” that when she gave advice about the qualities one should look for in books to read aloud to a second-grade child, they should be interesting to “her.” This little slip points out that even after all of the attention focused on boys as readers and the need to emphasize that guys do read and enjoy it, even thoughtful writers and magazine editors can slip up and assume that books are a girl’s thing.

Edie Ching
Washington, D.C.

The Horn Book editors respond: Our intention in Robin’s article was to alternate gender-specific pronouns and thus avoid the clunky “he or she” or “him or her” construction. Later in the article, for instance, you will find the sentence: “Once your child calms down about reading, he [emphasis added] will not worry about whether a book is a picture book or a chapter book.” But we appreciate your point—after all, our own editor in chief is a guy!

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