MotherReader

I didn't want to write about the woman who is reading Harry Potter to her five year old son while censoring the difficult parts with a technique she calls "pinkwashing." The whole thing seems too stupid by half, but it continues to gnaw at me with an idea of three things that just need to STOP!

It’s not like you haven’t seen the list of the New York Times Best Illustrated Children’s Books already, since I’m late on the uptake. But for my own records and general comfort level that I’m paying attention to such things, here they are with my little thoughts.

Along a Long Road
written and illustrated by Frank Viva (Little, Brown)
Yeah, I can see why this was chosen. Interesting art, though not one of my favorite books this year.

A Ball for Daisy
written and illustrated by Chris Raschka (Schwartz & Wade)
Generally I don’t love Raschka’s art, but I liked it here. The loose style of his work matches the playfulness of a puppy very nicely.

Brother Sun, Sister Moon: Saint Francis of Assisi’s Canticle of the Creatures
written by Katherine Paterson, illustrated by Pamela Dalton (Chronicle)
Simply gorgeous!

Grandpa Green
written and illustrated by Lane Smith (Roaring Brook)
Clever, touching, and brilliant in concept and illustration.

Ice
written and illustrated by Arthur Geisert (Enchanted Lion)
Really? The book with the pigs? Okay, I guess.

I Want My Hat Back
written and illustrated by Jon Klassen (Candlewick)
Still trying to get on board with the hype on this title. Also, while I like the illustrations I don’t think it falls into the best illustrations of the year.

Me… Jane
written and illustrated by Patrick McDonnell (Little, Brown)
Honestly, my favorite parts of the illustrations are the old engravings used under the text. But I like the book and like McDonnell’s work, so I give it my seal of approval.

Migrant
written by Maxine Trottier, illustrated by Isabelle Arsenault (Groundwood Books)
Don’t know this one.

A Nation’s Hope: The Story of Boxing Legend Joe Louis
written by Matt de la Peña, illustrated by Kadir Nelson (Dial)
Or this, but it is Kadir Nelson who is probably contractually obligated to be listed whenever best illustrator lists are made. And rightly so.

A New Year’s Reunion
written by Yu Li-Qiong, illustrated by Zhu Cheng-Liang (Candlewick)
Don’t know this one either, but it just came out a week ago, so I shouldn’t have to take the blame for that.

As I’ve been making my way through the Cybils-nominated picture books, I’ve come across some favorites that I would have liked to see on the list. Books like Blackout, by John Rocco, Blue Chicken, by Deborah Freeman, and Naamah and the Ark at Night. Since I don’t know the last three books anyway, in my head I’ll be replacing them with my selections.

...would be as irresponsible a headline as Picture Books No Longer a Staple for Children — and about as accurate.

Suppose I wanted to write an article about the decline of air travel in September. I could elaborate on what is meant by “decline” by looking at whether there were periods of higher air travel due to fare wars or other circumstances. I could write about the continuing poor economy affecting the number of flights. I could discuss cycles of travel where there is downturn after the summer months. I could even investigate travel in general, looking at statistics of train or automobile trips for comparison.

Or I could decide that bedbugs are a hot issue and look to link them with air travel declines. After all, there are people that think about germs on planes and from germs it’s a short leap to vermin on planes and after talking to someone for thirty minutes or so and maybe mentioning bedbugs specifically I could get a quote like, “I won’t be getting on a plane with bedbugs!” And if the rest of that person’s thought was along the lines of, “Boy, am I glad that’s not a problem,” well, so be it.

It is certainly possible and even likely that publication and purchasing for picture books is down. But first of all, down from what? Is this a market correction of what was a picture book boom? Is the poor economy in general making parents buy cheaper paperbacks? Are we in a market cycle where publishers are putting more investment into a hot YA market? Are people turning to other sources for picture books, including libraries and yard sales? Should we look at library circulation statistics? And if parents are pushing chapter books, is it a new trend? Is it quantifiable?

Or is it easier to cast this as a hot topic like pushy parenting and imply an end to picture books?

I haven’t done the in-depth research to answer the questions I’m posing. But then again, neither did The New York Times. The difference is that I don’t have the power to make people anxious about the literacy progression of our children or cause concern about the state of the picture book or affect the industry with my write-up.

Because that would be irresponsible.

The worry of the day is the New York Times article that tells us the picture book market is fading as parents push their kids into chapter books. Now the kidlit folks will all go crazy defending picture books and deriding parental pressure.

But people, we are forgetting one important thing here: This is The New York Times. And in terms of children’s and young adult literature, this is what they do. Some writer comes up with a topic in this field, within which they know very little. They “research” that topic with a few interviews, an observation or two, and a quote from Man on the Street. Or in this case, Parent in the Bookstore.¹

They’ve done this with the topic of Young Adult literature being too dark. They’ve done this with summer reading lists being too light. They’ve done this with The Catcher in the Rye being useless for today’s teens. And with Twilight as the defining book for our generation. Or profiling a family that blogs about children’s books as being this amazingly unique concept.

People, people, people, we need to realize that it doesn’t matter.

I’ll be the biggest defender of picture books. I’m the organizer of the Cybils Fiction Picture Book category, for goodness’ sake. I have an article about the value of that literature for kids. I can attest personally to the growth I’ve seen in the quality of books of the picture variety.

But am I surprised if it turns out to be true that, in a down economy, people are buying fewer picture books than they were before? Um, no. Guess what? People are buying a lot less of everything in a down economy. And while I’ll protest forever the parents who chastise their kid for choosing a picture book in the library as being too babyish, I can understand the mindset of an economizing parent who, when purchasing a book, wants to find one that will last a little bit longer. Hey, we do it with shoes and it works.

Sure, we can lose our collective shit for the next week addressing this article. But I’d rather keep talking about children’s and young adult literature based on what we know, understand, and research with far more authority than one reporter in one big paper with one little story.

Though if you feel like you must write something, perhaps try a piece on the terrible state of newspaper reporting based on, say, the article in the New York Times. At least it will be payback for all the crap they’ve given us.

Yesterday I started to write about the scrotum issue as well as my BACA alert, but I was running out of time before work so I had to bag the scrotums. (Was that too easy? It felt like it was too easy.) I hadn’t weighed in on the issue partially because I didn’t feel like I had anything new to add to the discussion and partially because I was juggling too many other personal concerns. It’s hard to care about the scrotum when you have all these balls in the air. (Again, easy.)

When the dust had settled, two posts stood out to me. One was only (let’s see, 5 + 7 + 5 = 17) seventeen syllables long. I’ve debated today whether I would do this blogger a greater service by posting her work here or linking to it, but I’ll link to be safe. Check out Emily Reads on the topic.

The other post that picked up accolades around the kidlitosphere was one by Pixie Stix Kids Pix. In contrast to the seventeen-syllable post, this one feels closer to seventeen pages. It’s very through. It’s also extremely good in describing the whole Scrotum Kerfuffle (I believe that is now the official term, is it not?). When you look at the whole lifespan of the issue, it’s really just nuts. (Still easy.)

The PKP post led me to my point of contention, which is accuracy in reporting. The New York Times finds a few librarians talking on a librarian listserv about whether they should buy a book for their library that they believe has limited appeal — Newbery award or not — and uses a word that could be controversial. The Times takes this and runs with it as if the book is being banned all over the U.S.

If you can’t discuss professional concerns on your professional listserv without being taken to task by the freaking New York Times, then what’s next? I suppose the paper would like to report that we are being visited by Martians because a few people in the city claim they can see the aliens when they wear their aluminum foil hats. Or hey, maybe the media will start giving credence to the few scientists who say that global warming is a big myth and allow that to create a “controversy” over our environmental policies for so many years that the New York Times reporters find themselves kayaking to their office because the island of Manhattan is three feet underwater. But I digress.

In the end, I don’t want to give hell to the librarians who were having a discussion on a semi-private listserv about a book they hadn’t read (almost no one had, since it came out late in 2006) and its appropriateness for their schools (which, if you heard the word “scrotum” out of context, you might — might — wonder about). But the New York Times deserves a little hell for this fake reporting. I certainly hope that someone over there gets the sack (...eh, never mind).