Thread by @jenniferlagarde

Not long ago, after a session in which I celebrated Jerry Craft's #newbery win for New Kid, a teacher approached me to express her dismay over a #graphicnovel winning this award and asked me to justify my enthusiasm for the decision. She was not rude or combative, but she...

clearly thought I was wrong. I said I would be happy to discuss it with her, but I wanted to ask her a few questions first:

Me: Have you read New Kid?
Her: No.
Me: Have you read the specific criteria for the Newbery?
Her: No
Me: It sounds to me then that you're letting...

your own biases as a reader, rather than actual information, about the book or the process, guide your thinking.

To be fair, she then said that she probably needed to read the book before offering an opinion, but I was left feeling like that wouldn't happen. (Admittedly, I...

could be wrong about that).

I've been thinking about this conversation a lot and the thing I keep coming back to is this: reading snobbery is a real and distructive force in education. When we devalue specific formats or genres as not good enough or as not "real reading" we...

send the message to kids who love those books that their reading choices aren't good enough and, as such, they aren't real readers. Far too many kids never find that one book that transforms them into a human whose life is informed and inspired by story. How dare we ruin that...

experience for those who do simply because we don't enjoy or understand the same books they do. If we truly believe that reading changes lives and helps create better humans, then reading snobbery and elitist readers advisory have no place in classrooms or libraries. /rant