It's what's beneath the cover that counts

Forget the cover controversy, because inside the New Yorker is a great article about the formidable Anne Carroll Moore vs. Stuart Little. I love getting the behind-the-scenes scoop on the industry like this, seeing how children's books came into their own, with the help of such legendary women as Anne Carroll Moore and Ursula Nordstrom (and many others).

My favorite detail, though, might be the "Not recommended for purchase by the expert" stamp. Such power!

I hope people keep talking away about how offended/not offended they are by the cover, so that more and more pick it up and stumble across this article.

I think I heart Cory Doctorow

Not only did he write a riveting, sort of terrifying but hopeful, page-turner of a book (Little Brother--if you haven't read it, go get it now!), but he also wrote a fantastic column for Locus, about writing for young people. And he gets it.

He talks about books being markers of social identity for young adults, which is a thought I don't think I'd ever put into the right words before, but this is totally it. He says:

That's one of the most wonderful things about writing for younger audiences — it matters. We all read for entertainment, no matter how old we are, but kids also read to find out how the world works. They pay keen attention, they argue back. There's a consequentiality to writing for young people that makes it immensely satisfying.

YES!

He also points out that literature may be one of the few escapes left for young people today, with how much fear there is about getting hurt making it hard to live. Which is, too, a major theme of Little Brother.

Since I think one of the most obvious differences between adult and YA literature is that YA lit has HOPE, I'm glad that Cory Doctorow--and many others--are there for teens.