January, 1998

Staff -- School Library Journal, 1/1/1998

Author Upset over Movie

I have just seen the film based upon my book I Know What You Did Last Summer (Little, Brown, 1973) and strongly suggest that impressionable young people not be encouraged to see it. I had no input about the script and was not allowed to read it until after the movie was in production.

In my book, four teenagers are driving home at night from a party in the mountains, come around the bend, and hit a little boy on a bicycle. They report the accident, and leave the scene before help arrives. That's the only death in the story, and it's accidental. A year later they start receiving notes saying, "I know what you did last summer." The story is about the importance of taking responsibility for your actions.

In the film, the person they hit is an adult, and after they injure him the kids deliberately murder him. The screen writer moved the location from the mountains of New Mexico to a seaside village on the East coast so one character after another could be decapitated with boat hooks. One character (who wasn't in my book) gets shoved into a vat of boiling water in which he's been cooking lobsters. In another scene my heroine opens the trunk of her car, and finds a body with crabs surging out of its gaping mouth and swarming all over its face. Most of the action takes place on a fishing boat (there was no boat in my story) where the heroine frantically tries to hide in an ice bin to escape the "hook monster" (who didn't exist in my book). She digs into the ice and finds the heads of her two best friends.As the mother of a teenage girl who had her brains blown out--Kait's murder is described in my nonfiction book, Who Killed My Daughter? (Delacorte, 1992) and at Kait's web site--there is no way I want to be part of desensitizing kids to violence and turning murder into a game. I'm especially embarrassed by this travesty, because I Know What You Did Last Summer (Little, 1973) was one of the books that earned me the SLJ/YALSA Margaret A. Edwards Award for "a distinguished body of literature that provides young adults with a window through which to view the world, and which will help them to understand themselves and their role in society." I won't let my grandchildren see the movie.

Praise for Scales

The article "How She Connects: A Talk with Pat Scales, Winner of the 1997 Grolier Award" by Joan L. Atkinson (September 1997, pp. 110-114) is very timely and interesting. [Pat Scales] really did combine skill and passion to get students and their parents into reading.

The "Dial-an-Author" idea did really entice children to want to read! Who wouldn't want to participate in a telephone interview with a selected author?

Yes, I agree that it is important to state that the collaboration between classroom and librarian is of vital importance. Here at Metcalf Laboratory School my library's multicultural programs do excite the children to read after the ethnic speakers on different countries present their projects. Classroom teachers support the programs.

I was surprised to read that books are handed out and no checking out! And yet "I've never lost a book" is a risk very few librarians take.

Pat, maybe I should try it and I will notify you of my results.

Early Readers, Avid Readers

I was struck by the sentence in Marianne Saccardi's letter (September 1997, p. 92), "Many of my children's literature students arrive on the first day of class declaring that they read rarely or only when they have to do so."

I applaud her in that she is able to change a few of these aliterates into people who love books and can pass their enthusiasm to their students. My own feeling is we should limit admission to teachers' reading classes to those who love to read.

In speaking with adult library users I have come to believe that the most avid readers are created in homes and libraries. Soon after learning to read, future avid readers voluntarily read hundreds of books for the sheer joy of reading without hope of any outside rewards, or the pain of tests and book reports.

This intensive period of test-free voluntary reading for pleasure hones their reading skills and enjoyment of reading and makes them life-long readers.

Like learning a foreign language, becoming a facile reader is best done early in life. I believe people who don't experience this early intensive reading have great difficulty in becoming facile readers. Generally they get no joy from reading voluntarily, just like Ms. Saccardi's aliterate students.

I believe that to be truly informed one has to be an avid reader, voluntarily reading newspapers, books, and magazines. As a society we all depend on informed people, most of whom are avid readers.

Cheers, Jeers for November

I wanted to let you know how excited I am about the November issue. I started reading it an hour ago so I have only gotten to page 39. I keep having to stop to help patrons and take phone calls, but it is an excellent issue. My two favorite and most helpful articles so far are: "Mix It Up! 6 Ways to Rethink Tired Summer Reading Programs" (pp. 30-33) and "The Lure of Horror" (Up for Discussion, pp. 38-39).Keep up the good work!

I just picked up your November issue and cringed at the representation of a school librarian, or for that matter any librarian, on your cover.

There she is: the typical stereotype fostered by so many people outside the field. But to see this caricature image on a major library publication just threw me for a loop. Maybe glasses or a severe pulled-back hair style or a buttoned-up-to-the-neck look, but all three on one person? Give me a break.Couldn't you at least have made the glasses a bit more flattering?

Formal Apology Requested

After reading the conference coverage ("A Stunning Week: ALA Hits San Francisco for Its 116th Annual Conference," p. 33) in your August 1997 issue, people might get the wrong idea about the ALA member (now a former member) who sang at the first membership meeting. She had been invited to sing at the meeting and had no power over when she performed. Perhaps it would have been better had she been asked to sing at the beginning of the meeting, but she was introduced in what became the middle of it. At the time she was introduced, the meeting had been turned over to "general comments" due to a lack of a quorum. No matter what the circumstances, the behavior of certain audience members and others' remarks after her performance were rude and immature, appalling, to be exact. While some people may have been disgusted by the continuing lack of a quorum so that substantive business could not be carried out, taking it out on the performer was unfair; attacking her personally to "get back" at ALA was crude. Many people did enjoy her rendition of the Library Bill of Rights; her singing even attracted passersby, who entered while she was on stage and left as soon as the mudslinging began afterward. There might even have been enough people there to provide a quorum, had the approximately 130 absent/missing Council members attended the meeting.

The general feeling among those of us in the audience, and not just of those signing this letter, was and is that the meeting was used to allow certain people to argue about certain pet issues and bring up old injuries others on the Council had done them. What we heard was haranguing, except from Betty Turock and one other woman. Perhaps what the ALA membership really needs is to elect new Council members.We think that a formal apology from those whose remarks caused the performer such pain is called for. Perhaps, in the future, they will think before speaking.

It is no wonder a quorum is rarely, if ever, achieved. If the behavior exhibited at this meeting is typical, why would anyone subject themselves to a membership meeting? We will not be attending any more membership meetings until we know that the petty bickering and personal attacks have ended.These opinions are our own and are not necessarily those of our employers.