Let’s do an impromtu librarian and library lovers’ carnival in honor of libraries. I’m no libertarian; I think public libraries are a wonderful application of government and a wonderful example of free public education. I further believe public libraries, where an education is set out free for the taking, could and probably should replace public schools, where children are coerced into learning what the government wants to teach. However, this is not a debate forum. Send me (in the comments or sherryDOTearlyATgmailDOTcom) your links to any post that you’ve written or seen in praise or support of libraries and librarians, and I’ll link them here. I’ll start the ball rolling with a few of my own discoveries:
My favorite librarian bloggers are Camille at Book Moot, a children’s librarian who substitutes in public school libraries, Norma at Collecting My Thoughts, a retired college librarian, and Carmon of Buried Treasure Books who believes in privately-funded, membership libraries. I read all kinds of book-loving, library-loving blogs. Oh, by the way, Norma has a nice blogroll of librarian blogs. And I used to be an elementary school librarian–in another life.
Palm Tree Pundit: In Praise of our Public Library
Mrs. Happy Housewife: Ode to Libraries
Carrie at Mommy Brain says, ‘We love our library!” And she posted a poem to elaborate on the theme.
Here’s my Ode to Libraries.
As an admirer of Frances Clarke Sayers, I post a link to her tempestuous 1965 attack on Walt Disney. I feel she remains an important voice for those who deal with children’s writing. What would this defender say about our contemporary landscape? I can only surmise.
In the below interview, Mrs. Sayers answers the question about the libraries of her time. We must ask if it is true today:
“CMW: In all honesty, do you think quality children’s literature is marketable to a mass audience in America today?
SAYERS: I think you can find the answer to that in the public libraries all over the country. The folk tales, the fantasy, the fiction, as well as the great and wonderful field of non-fiction, circulate by the millions. These books are marketable because children consume them.”
Later, she charges:
“I feel that anybody who addresses himself to children has a responsibility, and that responsibility is to make available to children the very best that has ever been produced and to sustain the distinction of what has been produced..”
And on what matters in children’s literature:
“Children give life to these books… To be a classic means that it has enduring life which is given to it from its readers.”
Her passionate essays on children’s literature should not be forgotten.
The whole Disney affair is chronicled at Hornbook:
http://www.hbook.com/Exhibit/article_disney.