A Letter from a Librarian

Today’s word from Wordsmith,org was comstockery, which means, I believe, “Overzealous censorship of material considered obscene”

but the really interesting part of this e-mail was the link to a wonderfully well-written letter from a librarian called James LaRue in the U.S. to a lady who objected to his library stocking a children’s book (Uncle Bobby’s Wedding) that features a gay marriage as part of the story line.

http://jaslarue.blogspot.com/2008/07/uncle-bobbys-wedding.html

The gentleman has written a  polite, well-considered  reply to explain why he thinks the book and others like it which speak of controversial subjects can and should be included in public library stocks.

To read something so well-reasoned, written in a reasonable way, is just such an inspiring, uplifting, pleasurable experience.

And two very insightful ideas that I found in the comments section were these (both from a comment by the librarian in response to another comment) –

“…and the beauty of childhood is not what they don’t know, but their eagerness and ability to learn, to make meaning….”

and this one, which should be obvious, but so often isn’t –

“The intent isn’t to steal innocence from anybody. It’s to help all of us make sense of a world that doesn’t, sometimes.”

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2 Comments

Filed under NOT ABOUT FOOD

2 responses to “A Letter from a Librarian

  1. Priti

    Hi,
    I stopped by after a long time- Loved this post and will steal it to forward to some friends. Will try some of the new recipes. What is wheat berry?
    Take care
    Priti

    • welcome back 🙂

      how’ve you been? how was the Paris experience?

      yes, that letter is a great piece of thinking/writing, isn’t it.

      Wheat berry is the kernel/grain of the wheat plant – or basically the part that is ground in to whole wheat flour. only the husk is absent, the rest – bran,germ,endosperm – is all there.

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