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[CCBC-Net] Fwd: [goodnightmoon] Fwd: Lucky Children's responses
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From: binawill at aol.com <binawill>
Date: Thu, 22 Feb 2007 15:20:26 -0500
I thought you all would find this interesting in our discussion of the Higher Power of LANGUAGE! Bina Williams Bridgeport Public Library. Susan Patron--if you are on this list, I hope you are enjoying your award and also the ironic nature of all the hoohah! Many authors/illustrators consider it a badge of honor to have a book challenged. Your book is fabulous no matter what these folks say!
-----Original Message----- From: jgnlib at sbcglobal.net To: goodnightmoon at mylist.net Sent: Thu, 22 Feb 2007 3:10 PM Subject: Re: [goodnightmoon] Fwd: Lucky Children's responses
Currently working as a very part-time children's librarian, I was not aware of the controversy about The Higher Power of Lucky until I happened to watch The View the other day, on ABC. I thought the rest of you might be interested to know that Barbara Walters brought up the issue of the controversy about Lucky, but she made two major errors in discussing it. First, she referred to the award that the book had won as the Newberg Award (can you believe it, a journalist of her reputation!). Secondly, she talked about how the book had been banned in many libraries (and, of course, the reason why). This second error is much more understandable (i.e. mistakening the concept of a book banning and a challenge). I went to the show's website and was able to send an e-mail to Barbara, correcting the name of the award and explaining to her the distinction between banning a book (which we all know is done quite rarely) and challenging a book (which we know is done quite a bit!).I gave her the example of the hundreds of c hallenges made against the Harry Potter books, many of which did not result in the books taken off the shelves.
I do hope to hear from at least a staff member of Barbara's, and I will let you know if I do.
-Judy Naden
Linda Williams <LWilliams at cslib.org> wrote: I'm passing this along (from the CCBC listserv), because I found this story very interesting in light of the furor over The Higher Power of Lucky. ~Linda Williams
>>> Linnea Hendrickson <Lhendr at unm.edu> 2/20/07 10:46:13 PM >>>
I read the opening 2 or 3 pages of Lucky to a third grade class this afternoon. I prefaced the reading by saying this was this year's Newbery award winner, and that it also was the subject of a front page article in the New York Times over the weekend because some people had objected to something in the first couple of pages. I told them I would read the beginning of the book to them, and for them to listen very carefully to see if they could figure out what was objected to. I did give them a little background on Lucky and AA, and Hard Pan so they'd have a little context.
I read from the beginning through the snakebite sentence, and although I shot a glance out over the room, no one giggled or reacted in any way. I read a a couple of paragraphs more, then asked if anyone had any idea yet. Like Monica's students, a couple of children suggested the drinking and smoking as objectionable.
So, I told them that it was the part about the dog being bitten on the scrotum, which was a part of male mammal anatomy. They looked at me rather incredulously, like why would anyone object to that?
Then I read a bit more, and at the second mention of the incident, where it talks about the dog being bitten in a most sensitive place, some of them giggled.
I finished Sammy's story about Roy, and the kids didn't want to hear any more, even though I gave them a bit of a synopsis of the basic situation of the story. Actually, as I read about Sammy being dead drunk, I began to feel uncomfortable reading this to third-graders -- more uncomfortable than reading the word "scrotum." I've been thinking all the rest of the afternoon about why this book is over the heads of third graders. Although I hesitate to generalize about age groups (I had some excellent readers in this group, and some very sharp students), I think that developmentally the book is more suited to slightly older students -- 4th and maybe even better 5th or 6th graders. Part of it is the structure of the book -- the movement back and forth between Sammy's story and Lucky's listening, and her thoughts as she listens, which makes the story much more reflective than plot-driven. Awareness of the complexities of the adult world at the level presented here is, I think, beyond the developmental level of most third graders. Perhaps they are not yet able to move that far beyond themselves. I think interest in issues of the adult world increases as they become 4th and 5th and 6th graders. Indeed, Patron has said that she wrote the book for the 10-year-old inside of her.
Next step is to try this out on some older kids, or give it to their teachers to read. I'm cross-posting this to the Child_lit list. Apologies to those on both lists.
Date: Thu, 22 Feb 2007 15:20:26 -0500
I thought you all would find this interesting in our discussion of the Higher Power of LANGUAGE! Bina Williams Bridgeport Public Library. Susan Patron--if you are on this list, I hope you are enjoying your award and also the ironic nature of all the hoohah! Many authors/illustrators consider it a badge of honor to have a book challenged. Your book is fabulous no matter what these folks say!
-----Original Message----- From: jgnlib at sbcglobal.net To: goodnightmoon at mylist.net Sent: Thu, 22 Feb 2007 3:10 PM Subject: Re: [goodnightmoon] Fwd: Lucky Children's responses
Currently working as a very part-time children's librarian, I was not aware of the controversy about The Higher Power of Lucky until I happened to watch The View the other day, on ABC. I thought the rest of you might be interested to know that Barbara Walters brought up the issue of the controversy about Lucky, but she made two major errors in discussing it. First, she referred to the award that the book had won as the Newberg Award (can you believe it, a journalist of her reputation!). Secondly, she talked about how the book had been banned in many libraries (and, of course, the reason why). This second error is much more understandable (i.e. mistakening the concept of a book banning and a challenge). I went to the show's website and was able to send an e-mail to Barbara, correcting the name of the award and explaining to her the distinction between banning a book (which we all know is done quite rarely) and challenging a book (which we know is done quite a bit!).I gave her the example of the hundreds of c hallenges made against the Harry Potter books, many of which did not result in the books taken off the shelves.
I do hope to hear from at least a staff member of Barbara's, and I will let you know if I do.
-Judy Naden
Linda Williams <LWilliams at cslib.org> wrote: I'm passing this along (from the CCBC listserv), because I found this story very interesting in light of the furor over The Higher Power of Lucky. ~Linda Williams
>>> Linnea Hendrickson <Lhendr at unm.edu> 2/20/07 10:46:13 PM >>>
I read the opening 2 or 3 pages of Lucky to a third grade class this afternoon. I prefaced the reading by saying this was this year's Newbery award winner, and that it also was the subject of a front page article in the New York Times over the weekend because some people had objected to something in the first couple of pages. I told them I would read the beginning of the book to them, and for them to listen very carefully to see if they could figure out what was objected to. I did give them a little background on Lucky and AA, and Hard Pan so they'd have a little context.
I read from the beginning through the snakebite sentence, and although I shot a glance out over the room, no one giggled or reacted in any way. I read a a couple of paragraphs more, then asked if anyone had any idea yet. Like Monica's students, a couple of children suggested the drinking and smoking as objectionable.
So, I told them that it was the part about the dog being bitten on the scrotum, which was a part of male mammal anatomy. They looked at me rather incredulously, like why would anyone object to that?
Then I read a bit more, and at the second mention of the incident, where it talks about the dog being bitten in a most sensitive place, some of them giggled.
I finished Sammy's story about Roy, and the kids didn't want to hear any more, even though I gave them a bit of a synopsis of the basic situation of the story. Actually, as I read about Sammy being dead drunk, I began to feel uncomfortable reading this to third-graders -- more uncomfortable than reading the word "scrotum." I've been thinking all the rest of the afternoon about why this book is over the heads of third graders. Although I hesitate to generalize about age groups (I had some excellent readers in this group, and some very sharp students), I think that developmentally the book is more suited to slightly older students -- 4th and maybe even better 5th or 6th graders. Part of it is the structure of the book -- the movement back and forth between Sammy's story and Lucky's listening, and her thoughts as she listens, which makes the story much more reflective than plot-driven. Awareness of the complexities of the adult world at the level presented here is, I think, beyond the developmental level of most third graders. Perhaps they are not yet able to move that far beyond themselves. I think interest in issues of the adult world increases as they become 4th and 5th and 6th graders. Indeed, Patron has said that she wrote the book for the 10-year-old inside of her.
Next step is to try this out on some older kids, or give it to their teachers to read. I'm cross-posting this to the Child_lit list. Apologies to those on both lists.
-- Linnea Linnea Hendrickson Albuquerque, NM Lhendr at unm.edu http://www.unm.edu/~lhendr _______________________________________________ CCBC-Net mailing list CCBC-Net at ccbc.education.wisc.edu Visit this link to read archives or to unsubscribe... http://ccbc.education.wisc.edu/mailman/listinfo/ccbc-net _______________________________________________ goodnightmoon mailing list goodnightmoon at mylist.net http://mylist.net/listinfo/goodnightmoon _______________________________________________ goodnightmoon mailing list goodnightmoon at mylist.net http://mylist.net/listinfo/goodnightmoon ________________________________________________________________________ Check out the new AOL. Most comprehensive set of free safety and security tools, free access to millions of high-quality videos from across the web, free AOL Mail and more.Received on Thu 22 Feb 2007 02:20:26 PM CST
