Tolerance a necessity, bullying—unacceptable!
November 8, 2010
“In Schools’ Efforts to End Bullying, Some See Agenda,” http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/07/us/07bully.html?src=mv spotlights the need to draw a solid line separating education from advocacy. We must teach tolerance, making it unacceptable for children to bully others based on sexual persuasion. The challenge is how to accomplish this without endorsing or condemning a specific lifestyle. Through a story children can talk through and understand the issues.
Am I Blue? Coming Out from the Silence, by Marion Dane Bauer was the first YA fiction anthology devoted to exploring the myriad meanings of gay/lesbian/identity in the lives of teenagers. ALA’s new award for books of merit relating to the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered experience is The Stonewall Children’s and Young Adult Literature Award. ALA says there is a growing demand for high quality children’s books that reflect the experiences of gay men and lesbians, citing a national statistic: approximately 13 million children have a gay or lesbian parent.
Good books are neither a sermon nor a warning but rather an exploration that prompts one to ask their own questions and most importantly to find their own answers.
Where do writers get their ideas?
November 4, 2010
I am curious about most everything, including where do writers get their ideas? Truman Capote is a favorite author of mine and I continue to ask myself: “Did Truman just know more interesting people that I know—where did he find the people he wrote about, who inhabit his stories?” OR was it just that the […]
Picture books thrive—and for good reason!
October 28, 2010
Picture books unpopular?! Many parents are pressing their young children to leave picture books behind and move on to more text-heavy chapter books. Do we really need to wonder why too many children do not like to read and find reading a chore and a bore? To all parents—mindful of the increasing rigorous standardized testing in […]
Congratulations Mario Vargas Llosa, the Peruvian-born novelist recipient of the 2010 Nobel Prize in literature
October 21, 2010
Like most readers I pay attention to and like awards because they point the way to writers and books I might not meet otherwise. At the same time I make sure I treat the awards, not the winners, with a bit of levity. To honor our recent winner, let me quote from one of his […]
A New Yorker Cover…for book lovers.
October 15, 2010
I could not resist sharing the October 18,2010 cover from The New Yorker magazine, entitled, “Shelved” by Roz Chast.
