Educators & Librarians

Why We Do School Visits

Posted by on Jan 11, 2024 in Children's Literature, Educators & Librarians | 0 comments

And this, my friends, is why you want to invite an author to your kid’s school.

In case you have any difficulty with the handwriting, it reads:

“Dear Ms. Sarah, Thank you for showing us poetry. Sometimes I practice at home. Now I’m in love with poetry. Thank you for everything.”

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What We Are Doing to Libraries

Posted by on Nov 16, 2023 in Educators & Librarians, Politics, Uncategorized | 0 comments

If you want your heart broken–or if your heart is made of stronger stuff than mine–read this piece from the Washington Post, “The librarian who couldn’t take it anymore.”

Tania could feel something shifting inside her 21st-century media center. The relationships between students and books, and parents and libraries, and teachers and the books they taught, and librarians and the job they did — all of it was changing in a place she thought had been designed to stay the same.


A library was a room with shelves and books. A library was a place to read.


Now the library, or at least this library, was a place where a librarian was about to leave.

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Librarians Don’t Belong In Jail

Posted by on Mar 9, 2023 in Children's Literature, Educators & Librarians, Politics | 0 comments

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This is the kind of books that could have educators fined or jailed if LD 123 becomes law in Maine.

I’m from Portland, Maine. If you’re also a Mainer, please call your state representative and speak out against a bill, LD 123, which could leave school librarians open to $5000 fines and five years in jail for making books accessible to kids.

I hate the idea of targeting librarians and educators who are just trying to teach, inspire, and help kids. And I also hate the fact that this bill’s language is so vague that no one will be able to figure out what material violates it. Playboy? It’s Perfectly Normal? Any James Bond novel? GenderQueer? Speak? Julie of the Wolves? Who knows?

And that’s deliberate, of course. People who propose bills like these want every educator on edge all the time, worried about crippling fines and jail time instead of doing their jobs.

It’s vicious. It’s vile. Please push back.

Here’s an easy way to do just that.

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You’re Right, Books Are Dangerous

Posted by on Feb 2, 2023 in American History, Childhood, Children's Literature, Educators & Librarians, Politics | 0 comments

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Blue paper covers shelves of books that students are being denied access to.

This just breaks my heart.

In a classroom–a classroom–books are being kept away from students. Students want to read, to learn, to feed their curiosity, to enlarge their sense of the world, to simply have fun, and they’re being told NO. Are being told that’s not what school is for. Are being told that curiosity and openness of mind and heart must be controlled. Are being told that THEY must be controlled, that they and their teachers cannot be trusted to make choices about their own reading. About their own minds.

The people who made these laws are right about one thing–books are dangerous. They tell facts. They explain ideas. They make change. They are change.

And if that scares you–you might do something like this to children.

But it’s about your weakness and your fears, not about the books. And not about the students. The only thing on display here is the cowardice of lawmakers who don’t deserve the title, don’t deserve their jobs, and who are cowering in fear of chapter books.

Shame, shame, shame.

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