From: bookmarch_at_aol.com
Date: Sun, 15 Nov 2009 17:19:06 -0500

Of lurches and subsets: I do not, as Debbie suspects, dislike her convicti on or her perspective. However I felt that, when this discussion began, th e questions she raised from her experience -- important as they may be to all, and crucial as they are to her -- were constituting the entire discu ssion, when to me they are a subset of some of the broad questions about reviewing that have since become the focus of the thread. And the questio n of big view and subset is -- in a sense -- the heart of this topic. Regi na clearly laid out the task she faces in examining books -- using her tra ining and experience to assist her peers in collection development. And ye t we are all here, on this listserv, because we believe that books for K-1 2 are not just useful tools, they constitute a literature, an art form, wi th its own depths, strengths, challenges, and opportunities. Those of us who create in this art form hunger for consideration of our work as a lit erature, with of the depth and subtlety of analysis that
 calls for. Dean thought he detected a disdain for critics. What I hear rather is an ache -- a yearning -- for a kind of sustained attunement and attention that on ly very, very, very few journals ask for, and thus a tiny percentage of bo oks can receive.

Marc Aronson
Received on Sun 15 Nov 2009 05:19:06 PM CST