From: Susan Land <shl>
Date: Wed, 4 Sep 1996 14:14:11 -0400

A lurker about to take the plunge and write! By way of intro - I was a children's librarian in Wisconsin before embarking on a tour of library jobs that took me to Kansas, Illinois and now North Carolina. In the process I moved from children's to public services to adult services, and now branch work, but feel like I've kept my heart in children's work if not the rest of me. After working in Wisconsin, getting to know the wonderful resources (especially the human ones!) of the CCBC (and being inspired by a CCBC workshop on children's literature to go to library school so I could continue reading and talking about all those great books and authors), this listserv has been wonderful because it helps keep me mentally tied to WI.

Rob's questions about how we felt about Mia were interesting because there were times while reading the book that I didn't like her much at all. But I felt so sorry for her, and ached so for her while she tried to brazen it out, that maybe we need that some negative reaction to her just to make it palatable. If she were all sweet and nice, and going through such agony, it might have been so sad and awful, it would have choked the reader. Does this make sense? The meanness makes her more real. I'm not sure about her having the "right" to act the way she does just because of her circumstances, but we all know kids (and have probably been that type of kid at some time) that are the hardest to love just when they need the love the most.

I, for one, had some problems with the aunt because of the type of person Dan turned out to be - maybe the human question of everyone needing love, and how the various characters try to find it in this story (find it and repell it) underlies everything. Hmmmmm?

Susan Land Plaza Midwood Branch Public Library of Charlotte & Mecklenburg County shl at plcmc.lib.nc.us
Received on Wed 04 Sep 1996 01:14:11 PM CDT