Editorial- School Libraries: "The Centerpiece"

I must admit, I have spent my first two months as editor of School Library Journal wide-eyed: attending notable awards events that celebrate the craft of creating exceptional stories and vivid images that inspire and entertain young minds, talking shop with talented authors and illustrators, and networking with savvy movers-and-shakers.

Just before Halloween, I went to my first Charlotte Zolotow award ceremony. Hosted by the University of Wisconsin's Cooperative Children's Book Center and established in 1998, the prestigious annual award honors outstanding writing in a picture book. With its first-ever award ceremony in New York City, the event drew many of children's book publishing's best and brightest to honor winning author Kate Banks for her book The Night Worker (Farrar/Frances Foster, 2000), as well as Christopher Myers for Wings (Scholastic, 2000).

Just a couple of weeks later, I attended the Anne Carroll Moore lecture at New York Public Library. I was captivated by this year's honoree, Julius Lester. He explained how his childhood in the violent, racist South of the 1940s helped form the creative fulcrum for his prolific writing career. He is the author of more than two dozen books for children and young adults, including such classics as To Be a Slave (Dial, 1968, 1998) and Uncle Remus: The Complete Tales (Dial, 1999).

However, as I reflect back on these heady two months, I realize that many, if not most, economically disadvantaged children in America will never gaze upon the pages of these cherished books. Most will never get the chance to lose themselves in the dreamy subtext of The Night Worker or obtain a much-needed dose of validation through Chris Myers's tale of individuality and self-esteem.

We celebrate books, we publicize our best picks, we honor the creators and, yet, the end results, the books themselves, never make it to those children who need them most. School libraries in our poorer communities simply can't afford to buy new books and are left with moribund, dated collections—if they have any collections left at all.

Congress is now debating a measure that would be the biggest boon to school libraries in more than 30 years. An amendment to President Bush's Reading First education initiative and introduced by Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI), the bill would authorize an unprecedented $500 million for local school libraries to buy new books and technology and provide training for librarians (see News ). The Reed Amendment meshes perfectly with Reading First, an effort to ensure that every child in America can read before entering the fourth grade. While the measure funds materials for grades one through three, we cannot rest until federal funding for school library materials includes grades four through 12 as well.

However, Reading First cannot be successful if kids do not have books to read. Right now, in many school districts across the nation, they don't. This, despite the critical role that public libraries play in a local community's literacy efforts. But Susan B. Neuman, a noted reading expert who is now Assistant Secretary of Elementary and Secondary Education, has conducted some compelling research that aptly confirms the yawning literacy gap between low-income children and their higher-income peers. Flatly stated, poorer kids have less access to books, whether at school, in their neighborhoods, or at home. Through her research, Neuman, whom we interviewed in this issue (see A Friend at the Top ), is convinced that "school libraries are the centerpieces of good schools." Neuman also recognizes the critical role that school libraries must play in the president's Reading First initiative in order for it to succeed. "We must bridge our two worlds [reading and libraries]" in schools, says Neuman, and then begin to highlight the work of librarians. "I think so many librarians are the hidden stars of literacy," says Neuman. Congress, are you listening?