Editor's Comments

Some members of the association have been annoyed that only negative comments have been printed in the Canon Reports we've published since the ChLA Canon was first released a year or so ago. Unfortunately, we haven't received any positive ones to print. I hope somebody out there shares my idea that the ChLA Canon is a useful list, and will write a short article for us that says why. Meanwhile, as a member of the committee that produced the list, I'd like to comment on some of the criticisms of it that we've published so far.

In "Spanish Kids Got No Books?" (Summer, 1983), Peter Neumeyer suggests that the word canon implies too much authority, that there's no particular reason for stopping the list at 1970, that the term "Worth Watching" is condescending, and that the list is preposterously Anglo-Saxon. Michael Steig (Winter, 1983), also objects to the "authoritative" nature of the list, mostly because he finds it unauthoritative; too many important names have been left out. And too many of the writers listed as "worth watching" have already established significant reputations.

These objections contain some truth. The list is indeed flawed—as all such lists are. But those flaws merely allow for what I've always assumed the purpose of the canon to be: to promote stimulating discussion, discussion of the sort both Neumeyer and Steig are taking part in.

Steig disagrees with the members of the Canon committee that Barrie, Baum, Bemelmans, Burton, Hoban, Jarrell, Lawson, Leaf, LeGuin, Lofting, Pene du Bois, and Travers are not worthy of inclusion; while I'd go along with him on some of those writers, I'd happily fight about Barrie or Bemelmans or Lofting, all of whom seem to me to have reputations must vaster than their talent. And while I know there are members of the Canon committee who'd defend the merits of Lloyd Alexander, whom Steig implies is equal to none of these, I might personally be persuaded by Steig on that one—if he swayed me with some good arguments. The point is, the list is not authoritarian, and could never possibly be. As our public and private disagreements about it suggest, we're just too humanly disputatious to let it be authoritarian.

In arriving at the canon, the members of the committee had wonderful arguments with each other. But we did resolve them, and the way we did so is instructive. Finally, we agreed to name on the list only those books that none of us would feel particularly upset about naming as both important and worthwhile. The books we chose share at least three significant qualities. One, they all are excellent children's books, in all of our opinions. Two, they all are noteworthy children's book—ones that represent important trends or that started important new styles. Three—and perhaps most important—they are all acknowledged to be important, not just by members of the committee, but by those who know children's books.

There are many excellent books that do not have such a reputation—among them, books by Russell Hoban and Ursula LeGuin and Randall Jarrell. There are also, we discovered as we argued, books that have such reputations but not the high degree of merit we looked for. To our surprise, we found a lot a agreement amongst ourselves about the well-known names we would rather not include—in particular, Baum and Barrie, In leaving those names off the list, we made a conscious decision to demand both significance and merit—or, let's be honest, our agreement with each other about both significance and merit. Perhaps, to be perfectly fair, we should have added another category to the list: over-rated books that are nevertheless well-known enough to be considered important.

Also to our surprise, we found we could reach little agreement about more recent books. Personally, I'm convinced that From the Mixed Up Filed of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler and M. C. Higgins the Great are both important and excellent; other members of the committee (whose taste, I have to acknowledge, is undeniably deficient) assured...