But who can top her? Lisi Harrison (The Clique), that’s who, caught by Chasing Ray in a delicious quote that, with any justice, will come back to haunt her:

“I don’t mean to brag — but I get literally thousands and thousands of letters, thousands and thousands of e-mails from these girls, and I do read them and not one of them has accused me of perpetuating poison into their world and their society,” she said. “Every one of them says, ‘I suddenly realize that it’s not so important to be popular anymore. I used to be like this with our friends, but we’ve all changed. Truly. I really, really mean it.’”

Which would you rather read thousands and thousands of times? I suddenly realize that it’s not so important to be popular anymore or Where do you get your ideas?

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It was practically Pavlovian. We clapped because it was a beautiful performance, but also because we knew the tune and loved it, and we knew other people knew the tune and loved it–group hug, anyone? “Nessun Dorma” is a high culture artifact that secured a place for itself outside the gates when it was kicked over the wall by Luciano Pavarotti at the 1990 World Cup. Now it shows up everywhere (fabulously by Aretha Franklin at the 1998 Grammys); it has nothing to do with Turandot; and you can get it as a ringtone.

Purists scorn but I love this. Opera buffs are like librarians or anybody in a community of shared aesthetic commitment (although Wayne Kostenbaum writes that putting two opera queens in the same room spells trouble). Everybody likes being an insider to something, whether it’s opera or–I hoped I would get here–children’s books. We saw that in spades here last week, when children’s-book-lovers came together to rail at what they perceived was an attack by me on their affections. But it was also a very in-groupy fight on all sides, one amongst ourselves, the kind of debate that reinforces allegiance to the group because all sides agree that This Matters.

I don’t think we adults who love children’s books do so to be insidery (hmm, children’s books or high fashion. Which will make me cooler?) but our shared love does give us an inside to be in. We like having a cultural vocabulary shared by a few, but we are also aware that the reason we’re few is because children’s books don’t matter to most adults. This cognitive dissonance can cause both anxiety and a pleasant sense of superiority.

So we too like it when one of Ours is kicked over the wall, whether it’s everybody reading Harry Potter or, my favorite example, a country song that can cite Charlotte’s Web (“now I’m the one that’s caught in . . .”) and assume that listeners will know the reference. It reinforces our superiority (we knew Harry Potter before he was Harry Potter) and soothes our anxiety (if Charlotte’s Web is part-of-everything then maybe I am too). Mostly it’s just nice to have your affections confirmed, like when you convince a friend to like a book or a song you like. It makes you like it even more.

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I’ve got a three-way going on with Jules and Eisha, the gals of Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast, reviewing Perry Moore’s Hero; check it out.

Going to New York for a few days to see Elizabeth and attend a memorial celebration for Lloyd Alexander; tonight I’ll be dining with the Child_Lit crowd, bloggers Betsy, Cheryl and Monica among them. That should be particularly lively as the list is currently divided among* those who think J. K. Rowling is a hero for her recent revelation re Dumbledore, those who think she is a publicity-seeking fame whore, and those like myself who haven’t read Book Seven and are just staying out of the whole thing.

* Joanna Rudge Long recently called me on following between with three things. Is it really wrong?

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I wrote an article for SLJ a hundred years ago about “cult novels,” books that may or may not have had a wide audience but still seemed to speak to the kind of coteries Monica and I were both part of. They were books that made you and your friends feel like part of a special elect. Atlas Shrugged, Dune and The Lord of the Rings were big in that way; Monica also mentions Richard Brautigan, someone I remember Not Getting at all but I also knew he was Cool and therefore I should keep quiet. Who is speaking that way to teens today? Neil Gaiman is one I can think of, and I’m sure there is a whole canon of graphic novelists I just don’t know. I could also see M.T. Anderson getting that kind of readership but wonder if being published as a YA writer hurts more than it helps. Part of the appeal of cult writers is that you discover them without the apparent aid of adults (but bless the librarians who put them in our way), and the fact that a YA novel says, de facto, this is for you, can work both for and against a book’s appeal.

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As Monica Edinger pointed out in the post linked above, it’s not just kids. As Barbara Grizzuti Harrison wrote of her adolescence among the Greenwich Village Beats, “when I came of age in the 1950s, everyone one knew was an Outsider, and proud of it; and every Outsider belonged to a privileged Inner Circle of Outsiders, and then we grew up.” But not really: when, decades later, Harrison reviewed Beat poet Diane Di Prima’s memoir for the NYTBR, she devoted her entire review to proving that Di Prima hadn’t been one of the cool kids, really. It never ends. I’m not sure it can, heck, I’m not sure it should. As I once pointed out in a different context, this is how we got Protestants.

And today I read that kids are compiling hit lists of their enemies. Should we worry or be relieved that the Times chose to run this as a “Fashion & Styles” story?

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