{"id":101,"date":"2006-06-07T10:25:28","date_gmt":"2006-06-07T14:25:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/abbykingsbury.org\/books\/?p=101"},"modified":"2007-09-15T10:30:50","modified_gmt":"2007-09-15T14:30:50","slug":"next-in-line","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/abbykingsbury.org\/books\/next-in-line\/","title":{"rendered":"Next in line"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve just read two excellent books, the newish young adult novel Red Sea<\/em> by Diane Tullson, and the newish children\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s book The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane<\/em> by Kate DiCamillo.\u00c2\u00a0 (I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll write an entry about each of these books in the near future.)\u00c2\u00a0 Now it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for me to move on to the next book\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6which I have decided needs to be the 6th Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince<\/em> by J.K. Rowling.\u00c2\u00a0 We just received a donation at my library of a new copy of the book, and I felt compelled to take the book home to read while it was still clean and beautiful.<\/p>\n

I\u00c2\u00a0read each of the other five Harry Potter books as soon as it came out (pre-ordered my copies from Amazon, even).\u00c2\u00a0 It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not that I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m addicted to Harry Potter, or that I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m a huge Harry Potter fan.\u00c2\u00a0 In fact, a year or more ago I gave away all of my copies in one of many purges of my bookshelves.<\/p>\n

But I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m also not a literary snob.\u00c2\u00a0 A wise and funny friend of mine often says that it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not fair to hold children and young adults to higher literary standards than we do adults.\u00c2\u00a0 Adults often read bestsellers, books that are engaging but not fabulous, fun but not life-changing.\u00c2\u00a0 Why shouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t children and young adults have the same opportunity?\u00c2\u00a0 Don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t children and young adults have the right to take time away from the crunch of their school work and lose themselves in a quick plot and a fantasy world?\u00c2\u00a0 Wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t we, the judging adults, rather see our young people turn to a book instead of a television show or the internet?\u00c2\u00a0 (The role of adults in the selection of and production of children\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s literature is a topic that I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll approach in future blog entries.)<\/p>\n

I\u00c2\u00a0have no grudge against Harry Potter.\u00c2\u00a0 The only reason I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve waited so long to read the 6th installment is rather lame, actually: the 5th book is SO large that I found it physically uncomfortable to hold while I read it.\u00c2\u00a0 But as a children\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s librarian, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s both my duty and responsibility to know and understand the literature that the users of my section of the library (children) seek out.\u00c2\u00a0 So, Half-Blood Prince<\/em>, here I come!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve just read two excellent books, the newish young adult novel Red Sea by Diane Tullson, and the newish children\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s book The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate DiCamillo.\u00c2\u00a0 (I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll write an entry about each of these books in the near future.)\u00c2\u00a0 Now it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for me to move on to the next book\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6which … Continue reading Next in line<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-101","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-childrens-literature","category-librarianship"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/abbykingsbury.org\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/abbykingsbury.org\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/abbykingsbury.org\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/abbykingsbury.org\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/abbykingsbury.org\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=101"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/abbykingsbury.org\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/abbykingsbury.org\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/abbykingsbury.org\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/abbykingsbury.org\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}