I really enjoyed my interview with old school chum Carla Hayden in her Librarian of Congress office (with a beautiful view of the Capitol dome that nevertheless uneasily reminded me of way too many summer movies of the apocalyptic bent!). In the main, we spoke about children's books and youth librarianship, but Carla said something that moved me and gave me hope: we were talking about the importance of libraries to democracy, and she said that she had noticed that Members of both parties and their staffs used the Library as a kind of refuge, physical as well as intellectual and spiritual. She called the Library "neutral territory," which, to my ears, sounds more radically charged than it sounds, well, neutral.

We will be posting the video at some point this spring, and a print version will appear in the May/June special issue of The Horn Book Magazine, "Making a Difference." Carla certainly is!