More than 100 children’s book authors and illustrators have sent a letter to the White House to ask President Obama to ease the country’s mandates for “excessive" standardized testing in our nation’s schools. Such an emphasis has a negative impact on kids’ love of reading and literature, they say. The letter is being promoted by advocacy group FairTest (The National Center for Fair & Open Testing). “We…write to express our concern for our readers, their parents and teachers,” say the authors and illustrators in their letter to Obama, a copy of which is also addressed to the U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. “Recent policy changes by your Administration have not lowered the stakes. On the contrary, requirements to evaluate teachers based on student test scores impose more standardized exams and crowd out exploration.” The 121 authors and illustrators—who include Maya Angelou, Judy Blume, Donald and Nina Crews, Jules Feiffer, Lee Bennett Hopkins, Phillip Hoose, Marissa Moss, Patricia Thomas, Judy Viorst, Rosemary Wells, Jane Yolen, and Paul O. Zelinsky—also write in their letter: The authors and illustrators say in their letter that they would all support “a national campaign to change the way we assess learning so that schools nurture creativity, exploration, and a love of literature from the first day of school through high school graduation.” A formatted copy of the letter, with all the authors and illustrators names, is available online [PDF].