The work part of the week went fine. I spoke about Mommy/Daddy-loves-you-best books at Pomona to an audience of enthusiastic students, profs, booksellers and writers (Susan Patron, Candace Ryan, and Megan Whalen Turner graciously attended.) After lunch (our thirty-year-old favorite, patty melts at Walters, which has gotten way fancier) the next day with my old Pitzer bestie Ruth, we went over to the campus for a rather more intime (read: sparsely attended) but lively discussion of censorship with Susan and then went for a walk around the campus,
which has doubled in size since the 70s. The students were very polite to us Olds, and even praised the cafeteria food. (The all-you-can-eat ice cream, rumored to be a string attached to a bequest, was gone, but I noted that two vegan specialities were offered on each menu.) Right: Susan Patron and me.And son Dorian and his wife were very gracious to drive out to SFO for our stopover on the way home, bringing number-one-grandson Miles along for our adoration. When did he turn from a baby into a little boy? (He's not even a year yet, so it must be the haircut.)
And now I'm back and pondering the in-box drama that is the ALSC discussion of lowering its age level of service from fourteen to thirteen. It's amazing what can draw fire from the dragon ladies' throats!
11 comments:
For those of us not on the ALSC discussion list, can you summarize the highlights? I think Marc Aronson mentioned this on his blog awhile back, but I haven not heard much about it since then. Are they putting it to a membership vote?
Jonathan
Apparently, the whole thing has been mooted for a year because of a procedural error ALSC made in notifying membership of the proposed change. So no vote will be taken until 2011.
Sorry to have missed you, but one of my kids insisted on celebrating their birthday.
I was particularly inspired by the story of Angela the Pumpkin.
~mwt
Oh, Lisa, you California moms are all alike, letting the kids walk all over you and getting ponies and clowns at their birthday parties.
Ah, selfless Angela, "who has agreed to become a pumpkin pie." She's a role model for us all.
Yeah, a model for what happens when Thornton Burgess channels the Apostle Paul.
~mwt
Great fun was had by all watching Roger Rabid go after those pesky parental affirmation guides posing as picture books.
Still, it could be fun to have an "I love you more than that other book loves you" award. Maybe the trophy could be a bottle of syrup?
HI Roger, I don't get what you mean about age level of service. Service for what? thanks for clarifying.
betty t
tiselfar at visi dotcom
Betty, ALSC is both cleaning up some confusing language and proposing changing the age of children served within the scope of ALSC's mission. Right now it is preschool through age fourteen/eighth-grade, but the Board proposes changing it to birth through thirteen. There is no controversy about the birth end of things but quite a bit about fourteen to thirteen. The overlap with YALSA (which covers twelve through eighteen, I think) periodically results in turf wars between the divisions, and I thought I read that this latest results from YALSA asking ALSC to drop down to twelve, from where, presumably, YALSA would pick up. Personally, I think the overlap is fine and reflects the way youth library services are provided in this country. Any change would also mean that all the book award committees would have to rewrite their charges, which is a nightmare of red tape.
I seem to recall the same rumor about all-you-can-eat ice cream night at my alma mater (Wesleyan). Maybe it's an urban legend, told of and at every liberal-arts college in the country. Or maybe I'm inventing it. It was a long time ago and the state of my memory is such that I'm doing well even to remember where I went to college.
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