A thought-provoking article has been floating through my social media feeds lately about the 100th anniversary of the Newbery Award. (If you are unfamiliar with this children's literature honor, click here for more information.) The one-hundredth Newbery Award winner will be announced tomorrow, and that book will be flying into the shopping carts of children's librarians across the country.
The aforementioned article from the site Slate.com (not a site for children) discusses the appropriateness of earlier Newbery winners in the collections of contemporary libraries. Librarians are taught to aggressively weed collections to keep them updated and fresh, but often award winners are given a pass and allowed to stay on the shelves. But should they? It's something I have to question as an elementary school librarian. Do I buy a new edition of an old Newbery winner to entice today's readers, or is the content itself past its prime and relevancy? Social mores and social justice have changed quite a bit over the last hundred years. Our collection needs to keep up.
On that note, I'll be reading Linda Sue Park's Prairie Lotus next. Park's novel has been hailed as an antidote to the single story told by Laura Ingalls Wilder in her Little House on the Prairie series.
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