From: Peghowell at aol.com <Peghowell>
Date: Sun, 18 Feb 2007 15:23:11 EST

H all

I agree with Dave R's comments. In my former school system we had a group of parents who were on the lookout for anything to bring complaints about to the school board and the county in general. The first page would have set them on a rampage throughout the county.

I now teach classes in children's literature to teachers and I warned them about reading the book aloud - - not so much the content of the book or the word
- but the fact that teachers need to read materials before they read them aloud. From experience I have discovered that this is not always the case. Of course with this particular Newbery winner teachers would be hard pressed to admit that they did not know the content of this title.

Personaly I was concerned about the age level for which the book was written and that would be my main concern - as it is a small book with a lot of content which younger children would not understand and older children would not read because of the age of the protagonist. I would purchase it and put it on my shelves and would bring it to the attention of teachers, but would I put it on a list for parents and studnets?- I don't know, This is I think the concern about the book. As librarians we always make decisions about what to spend our money on, what books to list and recommend to parents and children - this is not censorship but book selection I like to think.

I hope that this makes sense and thank all for their comments which have helped me to look at Lucky in a slightly different way.

Peggy Howell FCPS
Received on Sun 18 Feb 2007 02:23:11 PM CST