Then, like magic, something changed overnight. Not like there was a lot to pick and choose from. So depending on the age of the child I’d load them down with Knots in My Yo-Yo String by Jerry Spinelli or Marshfield Dreams by Ralph Fletcher or maybe one of the Beverly Cleary ones like A Girl From Yamhill. As it happens, middle grade authors of books for kids really like writing autobiographies. So like any good librarian I’d take the child to the biography/autobiography section and we’d start to hunt and peck. An AUTObiography, see? And there, clear as crystal, was the printed assignment. You mean a biography? No (of course not, silly librarian). A small child would walk into my room, belly up to the reader’s advisory desk, and ask for an autobiography. About ten years ago, when I was a children’s librarian in New York City, it was to be feared. I don’t pretend to know precisely why teachers give it out or what they hope child readers will get out of it. First Second (an imprint of Roaring Brook Press, Macmillan)
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |