Letters

Electing to take part in the Election

Thank you for your editorial in the October issue (“No Politics, Please, We’re Librarians,” p. 11). As a youth librarian in the public sector, I am embarrassed to admit I was one of those librarians who had let the elections and related issues fall by the wayside while focusing on Halloween, our anime club, etc. Not for any political or subversive reason—I simply hadn’t given it any thought (yes, I know, shame on me!). You were only too dead-on.

While it was too late to do programming (we need to book and schedule our events two months in advance), I did, however, put up an extensive display on elections, political parties, and candidates along with some decorations and signage. It wasn’t much, but it wouldn’t have been there at all if not for you.

I object to your article “No Politics, Please, We’re Librarians.” At my library and on our Web site we have lots of information on voting for this upcoming election. We do the same for all other election years, too. Most of the other 54 libraries in Nassau County, NY, do as well. Your research was not very thorough.

Congratulations for your clear statement of ALA’s policies regarding lack of accessibility to publications (“An Open and Shut Case,” September 2008, p. 7). I have felt this way for many years and am so glad that you voiced your concerns so well.

Who knows, maybe a new movement will arise among the many of us who are ALA members and tired of the high cost of maintaining that membership.

I just finished reading “Has the Newbery Lost Its Way?” (October 2008, pp. 38–41). I can’t believe that someone was brave enough to print this. This is exactly how I have felt about the Newbery choices of the past few years: that these titles, while they did have that special something, were not Newbery quality or very appealing to children. While I read your magazine every month, I normally find it too liberal and rarely see eye-to-eye with what you print. I really feel you hit the nail on the head this time.

I couldn’t agree more with the premise of “Has the Newbery Lost Its Way?” I have been a librarian for the last 26 years in a Blue Ribbon school in Maryland that has both excellent and enthusiastic readers. I have watched with dismay how the Newbery Medalists have become, in general, less reader friendly, and dare I say less accessible, even to many of our most avid readers. It seems that so many of the award winners have settings or plots so esoteric, or marginal, that readers find them inaccessible, irrelevant, or simply not interesting. In which case we need to ask ourselves, who exactly we are best serving by declaring that these are the most excellent we have to offer. Excellence may in fact be only a relative term. In recent years, I’ve found it harder to justify the idea of using Newbery books as part of our curriculum. I no longer believe that purchasing Newbery titles is a given.

It appears from the article that there are many others with the same belief. The analogy of the Emperor’s new clothes totally resonated with me. I salute SLJ for publishing this article, and congratulate Anita Silvey for highlighting a topic that many would consider too sacrosanct to criticize. Perhaps this article and its research will spark a useful discussion among future Newbery committees.

I want to add my support to Dianne Daucher concerning her letter about Skippyjon Jones (September 2008 Letters, p. 8). I had the opportunity to read the book a couple months ago. I too found it extremely offensive. I am glad someone else feels the same way and here I thought I am an overly sensitive, middle-aged, white-woman liberal. I also found the book difficult to read because of all the Spanglish phrasing.

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