Librarians and Littles

If you haven't already, check out Jill Lepore's article "The Lion and the Mouse" in this week's New Yorker (Lives and Letters, 7/21/08).  It's an account of NYPL children's librarian Anne Carroll Moore and E.B. and Katharine White's differences of opinion re: children's literature in general and Stuart Little (Harper, 1945) in particular.

For another perspective (the editor's) on Stuart Little, see Dear Genius:  The Letters of Ursula Nordstrom (ed. Leonard S. Marcus; HarperCollins, 1998).  I love reading other people's letters, and this is an interesting and insightful collection.  Highly recommended.

Finally, I would have to re-read Stuart Little to give you my perspective on it; but I can say that while I'm fine with Stuart being a mouse, I don't like the invisible car.