From: Ruth I. Gordon <Druthgo>
Date: Mon, 30 Jan 2006 11:01:19 -0800

        
" It just makes me wonder why so many award winners need to appear on the Notable Children's Book list when committees who consider overlapping titles make individual and varying decisions. I'd like to see what the Notables committee selects on their own. Melody Allen"



I agree with the above 100%. What occurs is that the personality of a committee and a committee's list is "tainted" when it is forced to accept the opinions of other committees. I can recall more than one instance of notables discussions that were highly critical of a title and then were forced to put the title on its list. Sometimes this was painful. "Whose list is it, anyway?"

I write as a two-time member of notables and as a chair (and as one who served on the Board of Directors who tried to change the shoe horning.) I've been riding this hobby horse for a very long time and finally gave up. No sense in wasting my energy on impossible causes. Then again, maybe the time has come to renew discussion on the matter.

Thank you, Melody.

Big Grandma


"You may not be able to change the world, but at least you can embarrass the guilty." --Jessica Mitford (1917-1996)
Received on Mon 30 Jan 2006 01:01:19 PM CST