schoollibraryjournal: “I wanted to pay tribute to the series itself and to classic literature. I wanted to take those two things and fuse them together. In a way, the first Harry Potter cover should feel like Dickens.” -Kazu Kibuishi, “A New Look for Harry Potter” What do you think? I get the Dickensian vibe, and I like it. I am not totally sure — but I fervently hope — that HP lives on to be classics read by generations of kids, not just a publishing mania of the ’90s and ’00s.
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schoollibraryjournal:

“I wanted to pay tribute to the series itself and to classic literature. I wanted to take those two things and fuse them together. In a way, the first Harry Potter cover should feel like Dickens.” -Kazu Kibuishi, “A New Look for Harry Potter”

What do you think?

I get the Dickensian vibe, and I like it. I am not totally sure — but I fervently hope — that HP lives on to be classics read by generations of kids, not just a publishing mania of the ’90s and ’00s.

But a national policy of bullying parents interested in what their kids are reading hardly seems like the best way to encourage them. Indeed, from these numbers, the real scandal might be that so few books are ‘banned or challenged.’

Column: Banned Book Week is just hype, by Jonah Goldberg

A counterpoint to some of the celebrations going on at the moment. I’m torn by this bit of the argument in particular; yes, it’s good for parents to take an active role in helping their children select what they read. Lots more parents should be doing it—and don’t get me started on working at a library with no policy on R-rated movies, and having to hand over demon-possession movies to eight-year-olds. But I think by its very definition, challenging a book, particularly in its place in a library (rather than on a curriculum), means that parents are overstepping, and saying, “Not just for my child, but for no child.” That’s a move I think still needs questioning.

Ten most farfetched (silliest, irrational, illogical) reasons to ban a book.

booksalon:

  1. “Encourages children to break dishes so they won’t have to dry them.” ( A Light in the Attic, by Shel Silverstien)
  2. “It caused a wave of rapes.” ( Arabian Nights, or Thousand and One Nights, anonymous)
  3. “If there is a possibility that something might be controversial, then why not eliminate it?” ( Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, by Dee Brown)
  4. “Tarzan was ‘living in sin’ with Jane.” ( Tarzan, by Edgar Rice Burroughs)
  5. “It is a real ‘downer.’” ( Diary of Anne Frank, by Anne Frank)
  6. “The basket carried by Little Red Riding Hood contained a bottle of wine, which condones the use of alcohol.” (Little Red Riding Hood, by Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm K. Grimm)
  7. “One bunny is white and the other is black and this ‘brainwashes’ readers into accepting miscegenation.” ( The Rabbit’s Wedding, by Garth Williams)
  8. “It is a religious book and public funds should not be used to purchase religious books.” ( Evangelical Commentary on the Bible, by Walter A. Elwell, ed.)
  9. “A female dog is called a bitch.” ( My Friend Flicka, by Mary O’Hara)
  10. “An unofficial version of the story of Noah’s Ark will confuse children.” ( Many Waters, by Madeleine C. L’Engle)
 

Ooh, I had forgotten about The Rabbits’ Wedding controversy.

Wednesday: Contemplate bookshelves in office. “Moby Dick” encourages whale hunting, “Anna Karenina” adultery, Shakespeare teen suicide, usury and the occult. Faulkner, oy. Consider what would remain if all books containing sex, profanity, racial slurs, violence were removed from shelves. Narrow it down to “Cat in the Hat,” dictionary and Bible. Realize cat with hat encourages children to make a mess while mother is out. Discover in American Library Association Banned Books Week literature that the Bible was challenged as “obscene and pornographic” at library in Fairbanks, Alaska. Fear for future of human race.
Anna Quindlen, “Public & Private;Don’t Read This” (10/1/94, NYTimes)

Source:

Julia Donaldson on picture books about libraries. (She skips my favorite, pictured above. Look at that sweet bat face.) We have a TON of picture books set in or about the library, or about becoming a librarian. And I really want a non-library perspective — is this just publishers pandering to librarians, or do parents and children actually love this genre?
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Julia Donaldson on picture books about libraries. (She skips my favorite, pictured above. Look at that sweet bat face.)

We have a TON of picture books set in or about the library, or about becoming a librarian. And I really want a non-library perspective — is this just publishers pandering to librarians, or do parents and children actually love this genre?

Scholastic reports that 50% of the readers of “The Hunger Games” are adults. And more than half of the readers of the bestseller “Divergent” by Veronica Roth are at least 25 years old, according to a HarperCollins spokeswoman.

“Children’s literature is a fast-growing genre thanks to ‘Potter’ & Co.,” LA Times, 8/26/12

Preach it. I give dystopian YA recs to my 20-something friends all the time.