You might wonder how to write a blog post. Staring at the blank page (or screen) can be daunting. Writer’s block is a real thing, after all. And librarians, aren’t they all about shushing and stuff? Hard to please, cardigan wearing, and could I even? Well, it’s easier than your scary brain might be thinking right now. “Get comfortable in your wheelie chair and I’ll take you on a trip. A trolley trip, actually,” you write.
Tag: history
Banned books in the past: “Goodnight Moon”
Did you know that Goodnight Moon was essentially banned from the New York Public Library from 1947 to 1972? Yesterday I read The Important Thing about Margaret Wise Brown. OH MY. What a treasure trove of library history!! You probably knew about book bans in the 70s with Judy Blume, but did you know about Anne Carroll Moore in the 1940s? Anne Carroll Moore was one of “THE” important librarians for the New York Public Library and she did a lot of great things for the profession, as you will discover in Miss Moore thought Otherwise. However, she didn’t like Margaret Wise Brown’s books. She called them “truck” which was not a nice thing to say. From “The Important Thing…” “When Anne Carroll Moore read the wrong kind of book, she picked up a rubber stamp, which she slammed down BAM! And which said NOT RECOMMENDED FOR PURCHASE BY EXPERT.”…
Where in the USA is Ms. Amber?
Today, we are officially beginning our road trip across the United States with the first stop– Washington, D.C. I’m doing what I can to help teach American and World history in a fun way, from cup stacking to line dancing, sharing my love for history as I go.
Librarians then and now – passion and questions
One of my favorite books about our field is Library Work with Children, reprints of papers and addresses by children’s librarians, selected and annotated by Alice I. Hazeltine and published by H.W. Wilson in 1917. From programming to discipline to reference to “values” – it’s all here, the work we’ve been doing for over a century. It’s clear from these essays that children’s librarians have been passionate, opinionated and outspoken from the very beginning. Take “Story Hour.” Way back in the dawn of children’s librarianship, this meant something far different than it does now. If you could step back in time to 1905 or 1930 or even 1965, you’d see a group of kids, most of them no younger than 8 or 9, seated around a librarian. This librarian would be telling a story. Not reading a story – telling it. It might be a Hans Christian Andersen tale, a…