Children’s Literature is a passion of mine. I absolutely love beautifully written and illustrated picture books. It is the best way I know of to introduce children to books and a lifetime love of reading. Those of us who are avid readers know that our love for reading has impacted and enriched our lives. Instilling a love of reading in our children is the best way I know of insuring that our children are not only enriched for the experience, but, their chances of being better able to comprehend what they need to excel in school.

This will be a blog for anyone and everyone who loves children’s literature and who wants an outlet to talk about experiences that impacted you as well as an opportunity for teachers, librarians, children’s programmers, day care workers, preschool teachers, Head Start teachers, college students, etc. who are looking for theme related material to talk about the types of books you need, but have difficulty finding. Sometimes finding developmentally appropriate materials to use with very young children is very difficult. It is also a blog for parents who are interested in quality literature for their children.

Are you looking for holiday books for very young children? Do you need Black History books for very young children? What about “bibliotherapy” materials? For those of you who don’t know that term, are you looking for books that help young children deal with death, divorce, catastrophic illness, or other serious subjects? Express your difficulties in finding certain types of books here. At best, other bloggers may be able to point you to materials you are looking for. At least, you may inspire potential writers to write the book you need. With that in mind, I want this blog to be a chance for all who participate to fulfill various objectives. This blog will be directed mostly to those who are interested in talking about picture books, but as your children age and you are interested in other books, we may look at chapter books and look at referring you to other blogs that deal with literature for older children.

1. Talk about the books you have loved, books that influenced you, books that every child should have the opportunity to experience.
2. Discuss books that worked and books that just missed. We can explore what makes a great book and why some miss out on greatness.
3. Describe books you would like to have in your collection that you cannot find when you need them for a unit, a story time, or whatever.
4. As a retired children’s librarian, I am very sensitive to the need of books being available. Even children’s books are censored. If you have had problems finding a book because it was censored in your school or in your library, I am most interested in hearing about that. Librarians are very committed to keeping books available to the public, even those we may personally dislike for some reason or another. I am not talking about poorly written books here, but books you could not find because they were written about a subjective that is sensitive to some or books that contain an idea or theme that somebody else decided was inappropriate.

5. Most of all, this blog needs to be enjoyable, useful and often a lot of fun.

This will be a blog that talks about children’s literature. It will not be a blog where we share the difficulties of our jobs or our political issues. People who know me know I am very interested in politics, but there are other venues to talk about that.
Sometimes, I will write my own reflections and sometimes when I am able to reproduce with permission or without copyright infringement, I may pass on an article of interest.

In time, I hope to add links where you can look for book reviews, resources for teaching a book, resources for finding older or out of print books, and other useful links. I also look for ideas from people who use this blog that will make this a better blog. It will give me ideas, but it will serve you, too.