Letters to the Editor

Try to understand Orson Scott Card’s beliefs before passing judgment

Although you congratulate Mr. Card by the end of your editorial (February 2008, p. 11), it is obvious throughout your piece that you are quite at odds with his success. First, I would like to comment on one sentence: “Yet I can’t help but feel sorry for those gay kids.” After numerous years as a chaplain and teacher, I have learned that it is not sympathy but empathy that helps us to better understand and serve our fellow beings. You feel sorry for them because Card doesn’t? Is that your message?

I am saddened by your misunderstanding of Card and his admirable beliefs, especially considering the fact that the world wants to embrace the “anything goes” lifestyle. Is it not obvious from ample evidence that the practice of homosexuality is associated with severe physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual problems?

You say, “YALSA has elevated a man whose lifetime achievements include writings that are likely to undo the very charge of the award: helping teens understand themselves, the world in which they live, and their relationship with others and with society.” It saddens me that you think promoting homosexuality will help youth “understand themselves.” Card’s beliefs are “wrong” only because you believe them to be—that is not reality; that is perception.

May I suggest that you practice what you preach in your editorial—intellectual freedom. Try to better understand Card’s beliefs before passing judgment upon him. I refer you to a primary document from his religious doctrine, “The Family: A Proclamation to the World” (www.lds.org/library/display/0,4945,161-1-11-1,00.html), published by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. This document can help every person on this big, green earth better understand themselves and others. Take the opportunity to read it and open up your world to things that you may never have considered before.

Thanks for your thoughtful editorial in the February issue. I hope people will read to the end of it rather than just skim the headline. I also hope that the space you give to Orson Scott Card as the 20th winner of the Margaret A. Edwards Award will not be limited to your editorial and the news stories on pages 12 and 14. Over the last few months, I have been working with Ken Donelson to update the eighth edition of our Literature for Today’s Young Adults textbook. One of our new features is a page devoted to each of the Edwards Award winners. In preparing these pages, I have enjoyed looking at SLJ’s covers featuring each winner and rereading each of the complimentary interviews.

I think it would be an unfortunate example of prejudice if SLJ treated Card differently from the way it has treated the previous winners. I do not remember attitudes toward sexuality being the lead-off topic for any of the earlier stories, although the idea frequently bubbles up beneath the surface. M. E. Kerr, for example, told me that only after she won the Edwards Award did she feel brave enough to come out on the national scene as a lesbian. Statistically speaking, YALSA committee members have been generous to gay and lesbian writers with the percentage of winners at least doubling the national average of “one in ten.” I applaud such inclusiveness, but at the same time I am saddened to see how the pride and pleasure that Card deserved to feel after winning the award has been tarnished.

The criteria for the Edwards Award includes “a lifetime of achievement in writing for young adults.” To single out just two books as representative of Orson Scott Card’s total literary output is to select a small quantity of the whole and to judge the whole by this part. Librarians rightly object when a book is judged by a few selected passages, and I am objecting that the author of the “Homecoming” series, in which a gay character forces himself to marry and have kids, has received this award. Taken as a whole, Card’s lifetime output does have its highs, but also its lows, and does not “help young adults thoughtfully to build a philosophy of life.”

I appreciated Brian Kenney’s thoughtful and honest assessment of Orson Scott Card’s selection for the Edwards Award. What no one seems to mention is that Card also gently suggests in many of his YA books that belief in God and the Christian religion is the best way to live. The inferences are subtle and I only noticed them upon a second reading. While I keep his books on my shelf and I know they are very popular with my students, I am no longer eager to suggest them as great reads. There is enough proselytizing in the world without it sneaking up on our students in books.

It was interesting to read yet another article expounding the virtues of a Barnes & Noble-style library. In your next article, could you please include some layout ideas? I’m an older librarian, but new to the high school scene. I had read about the “new ideas” for school libraries and decided to try some things out my first year. First I took down all the “No Food or Drinks” signs. The temperature in the library was in the high 80s when school started and I needed a water bottle! So the new rule became drinks with lids and food in a bag (no hamburgers and fries or pizza) were allowed. I also allowed kids with fines or overdue books to check out. Finally, I rearranged the magazines so the students could actually see the front covers and put some round tables and chairs near them.

So what have been the consequences? I’ve cleaned up two drink spills and collected drink bottles off the tables at the end of the day. I’ve thanked the custodians (often) for cleaning up spilled sunflower seeds and other messes. Luckily, they haven’t been anything that couldn’t go up a vacuum.

However, what bothers me most is that I fear I’m driving out the kids that I want and bringing in a clientele that certainly isn’t going to increase my circulation. The students that come in now are looking at the magazines (and sometimes ripping pages out of them), but I cringed when I found one of my favorite fantasy readers sitting on the heater in a corner because the library was too loud. So my question is: How can I take this big square room and create zones? I need a “peaceful reading room,” as you described in your editorial, and I want to have comfortable chairs and a cozy atmosphere for the other kids, but how?

Thank you for your editorial in the January issue (p. 11). Our school has outgrown the building we rent, so the library has been in the basement of a building next door. It has been an interesting challenge serving students who can’t get to the library without an adult escort.

We’re beginning a renovation project with one of the goals being the return of the library to the school building. Your editorial describes exactly how I want the library to be and to feel once students can come freely throughout the day. It will be wonderful to add your voice to my list of needs and wants as the design process begins. And I’m hoping to put a coffee pot in the closet, at least, to attract the teachers!

We appreciate the review of Elaine Landau’s “True Book” titles (Children’s Press, 2007) in the astronomy roundup (November 2007, p. 115).

I would like to clarify one point. The reviewer mentioned that two different speeds were given for the New Horizons spacecraft in the Pluto and Beyond Pluto books. These differing numbers were placed in time: the faster speed was in the present tense, and the slower number was listed for the moment that New Horizons reaches Pluto, around 2020. Both these numbers are correct, as the spacecraft will slow down significantly in the course of its voyage.

In response to “Want a Baby? Step Right Up!” (January 2008, Letters, p. 13), I do realize that adoption is a serious matter, but this book is intended as a fantasy-embracing, loving, comical song. In one possible thematic comparison, surgery is a serious topic, life-threatening even, but it can be approached in a light manner. For example, in Madeline, the heroine comes through her operation with flying colors, and what happens? All the other little girls want operations, too! It’s silly, but everyone gets the humor. This Is the Day! is not only a book about babies, but also a painless teaching tool—numbers beyond the usual 10, subtraction, and days of the week. The great illustrations by Marjorie Priceman capture all of that, plus the love and silliness evident in the text. The song itself (musical notation included in the book) will be available this spring on a CD, which will include several other lively picture-book-related songs.

I found your editorial in the December 2007 issue (p. 11) very biased. As a central materials selector, I buy children’s materials for 11 branches. Sure I consider staff input. But I also consider requests from the public. Unfortunately, staff and patrons do not always agree on what constitutes quality. You write, “... local staff... know their children and young adults, their interests and dreams, their schools and curriculum.” To say that any one person knows a community best is a slippery slope. Great collections happen by collaboration.

Sadly, I’ve witnessed some irregularities in selection in many libraries. I’ve seen staff refuse to buy certain materials based on personal tastes—too commercial, too offensive, too religious—take your pick. If done correctly, central selection provides balance.

I wonder if it is wise to judge your community solely by who comes in the front door. We now have a virtual community, too. A fair number of requests come in via the library’s Web site. Local staff never see those virtual requests. And I wouldn’t dismiss the inherent value in a community profile. The information contained in such reports provides clues to untapped audiences and may enhance the quality of programming and collections.

In terms of budget, you have made an incorrect assumption that staff will budget responsibly. Not always the case. Just try explaining to the public that your library doesn’t carry the latest hot title because you spent your budget before the end of the year.

“Want your staff to develop good reader’s advisory skills? It begins with good book selection.” I think it begins with an avid interest in reading. Knowing what’s on the shelves is essential, regardless of whether you selected those titles or not.

Central selection puts books in children’s hands a lot faster. If your friend has no say in what’s on her shelves, then that’s a real problem. She should look for another job.