The first is on Thursday, February 18th, where I’ll be at Pomona College in Claremont, speaking on “Children’s Literature and Adults: Where do we get off?” It’s at 4:15 PM, Ena Thompson Room, Crookshank Hall. I hear there will be snacks.

On Friday the 19th, I’ll be speaking at my alma mater Pitzer College, also in Claremont, with fellow alum Susan Patron on “What Makes a Good Banned Book?: How Children’s Literature Gets Into Trouble.” That will be from 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM, reception to follow, Broad Performance Space. Those with testicular fortitude are welcome to join us.

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And Jon Scieszka leads off the Library of Congress’s Exquisite Corpse adventure. (Thanks to Leila for the tip.) I’m not sureI am down with the LC reading software but my eyes are old.

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Elizabeth thinks not. We just talked and she opined that the pirate thing had already run its course anyway. But there was a sturdy tradition of jolly pirates in children’s books before the current craze, all more or less dependent on the assumption that pirates were far enough removed from a reading child’s reality to be practically folklore. Will the current situation, terrible but absorbing and updated in real time, put Captain Abdul (already unfortunately named) out of business?

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Matthew Whoolery and his wife aren’t blaming the school district for what happened on the bus but they do think all parents need to be careful about what they say and teach their children.
Whoolery and his wife couldn’t believe it when their second and third graders got off the bus last week and told them what other students were saying.
“They just hadn’t heard anything like this before,” said Whoolery. “They were chanting on the bus, ‘Assassinate Obama. Assassinate Obama.’ Then adding in a name sometimes of a classmate on the bus, ‘Assassinate Obama and Kate.’”

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The poem is a good one and can be found at the link.

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This is actually pretty typical of people who get power–and three-year-olds, come to think of it. They want to see how far they can push it. Mayors, school superintendents and library trustees alike are often surprised to discover that they don’t get to personally decide on library purchases or discards. It’s the librarian’s job to explain to them why this is a bad idea and arguably illegal.

I’m reminded of the time when Chicago aldermen removed–at gunpoint–a satiric portrait of the late Harold Washington from an exhibition at the School of the Art Institute. THAT was censorship. But just asking? Nope.

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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.

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I’m so old I remember when Amazon was cool.

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Of course she had her limitations and of course she went down fighting, but children’s literature and librarianship owe her plenty.

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