The Presidential Address Reading and Literacy: A Lifetime Work

The Presidential Address Reading and Literacy: A Lifetime Work I came into the presidency two years ago very nervously, not knowing for sure if I could do the job. I had taken copious notes in board meetings the day before about the vice president's job, the office I expected to fill in 1989. It is not my wont to look too far into the future; I planned to learn how to be president at the 1990 board meetings. That first year I would have floundered had it not been for an extraordinary executive board who were working hard to do their jobs and to help me look good as well. I kept a journal of tasks completed and find that I answered a surprising number of letters from people interested in some aspect of children's books. There is one I want to share with you because it expresses the importance children's books have on just about anyone . The writer wanted to find a book he remembered from the 1920s or early 1930s to share with his grandchild. I paraphrase his description. It was a small picture book with black and white photographs of animals dressed up, mainly rabbits. It was about Mother and Father Bunn and their children; one was Algernon. He was a good child even though he used the expression "OK" all the time. The climax of the story came when the young rabbits, led by Algernon, rescued the Easter Bunny who had been tied up by some bad boys. The Easter Bunny rewarded the bunnies by letting them distribute Easter eggs. They took off in a sort of dirigible captained by Algernon. One scene showed Mother and Father Bunn listening to an old-fashioned radio with a rounded top. The authors emphasized in the preface that none of the animals photographed had been forced to pose or had been mistreated in any way. This is an amazing recounting of explicit details of a book the writer has not seen for over forty years. That is, it is amazing unless one realizes that books can have this effect on children. Those things we learn early, we remember long; memories of a book read in childhood can be remembered over a lifetime.1 That is one of the reasons I tell the story here to emphasize something you in this audience know well; children's books can leave a lasting impression. Another reason is that in a crowd such as this one, someone may recognize the story and be able to give the writer a better answer than I could in December, which was, "I don't know."2 The Children's Literature Association was formed because of the importance children' s literature professors and scholars placed on this body of literature. The discipline had been largely ignored by mainstream scholars and English departments. It was, and in too many places still is, looked down upon, considered a punishment, or at least a developmental stage for some lowly professor to have to teach before he can advance to teaching "real" literature.3 t The Association has changed, and continues to change, that attitude. Rebecca Lukens likened our problem in attracting new members to the problem a modern union has making converts now. Working conditions are so good that workers see no need to join a union. I'm not sure that we've made children's literature so accepted in academe that we don't want to join an organization that promotes critical attention to it, but Lukens' point is valid. Students studying for the Ph.D. in English are encouraged to have at least one other specialization in order to make themselves "more marketable" once they have finished their course work and are in the job market. I didn't do that. In my Ph.D. program, I talked with each professor before signing up for a course. If he would not let me write my major paper on some aspect of children's literature that suited the topic, I chose another course. The result was that I wrote papers on Alice in Wonderland, Little Women, and children's editions of Beowulf, among others. My...