I thought that the furor over The Higher Power of Lucky was over and, while steamed by the negative light that was wrongly cast on school librarians, I greatly appreciated the joint letter to the editor by AASL President Cyndi Phillip and ALSC President K.T. Horning. Then Kelly Wilson, a school librarian also from Northern New York, e-mailed me with a "Did you see..." message about the editorial by Gary Stager "Good Books and Bad Reactions" in the April 2007 District Administration magazine. ARGH!

To me and other school librarians, he was behind the curve, saw the early publicity and wrote the editorial before the facts came out about a NY Times reporter creating a censorship issue that didn't exist. I really got a kick out of his statement that even if the book couldn't be read aloud, the book should be in the school library anyway, since "The author's livelihood is threatened by this censorship..." which actually is the opposite of reality. The author has a secure job as a librarian and the controversy shot the sales of the book waaaaay up.

 But most interesting to me as I gear up to become AASL president at the end of June was being cc'd as the official response from AASL and ALSC was prepared. The presidents, the exec directors of both divisions and ALA's Public Information Office head all whipped e-mails back and forth, brainstorming a response, creating a draft and about three revisions before the letter was sent to the editor of District Administration and posted on our blog by Cyndi Phillip. Care was taken to make sure that the values of ALA, AASL and ALSC were clearly stated.

 It's a great response and a real primer for me...all part of my learning curve!