(Roughly) Daily

Why a classic is missing from the New York Public Library’s list of the 10 most-checked-out books of all time…

… the New York Public Library, celebrating its 125^th anniversary, released a list of the 10 most-checked-out books in the library’s history. The list is headed by a children’s book—Ezra Jack Keats’ masterpiece The Snowy Day—and includes five other kids’ books. The list also includes a surprising addendum: One of the most beloved children’s books of all time didn’t make the list because for 25 years it was essentially banned from the New York Public Library. Goodnight Moon, by Margaret Wise Brown, would have made the Top 10 list and might have topped it, the library notes, but for the fact that “influential New York Public Library children’s librarian Anne Carroll Moore disliked the story so much when it was published in 1947 that the Library didn’t carry it … until 1972.” Who was Anne Carroll Moore, and what was her problem with the great Goodnight Moon?…

[There follows a fascinating story of self-assured curator who, even as she resisted a new wave in children’s literature, was a powerful force in making literature available to all of the kids of New York.]

… As [Betsy] Bird notes in a fascinating blog post, the legacy of Anne Carroll Moore is one that many children’s librarians struggle with. “She is the quintessential bun-in-the-hair shushing librarian,” says Bird. “She’s such an easy villain.” Her discriminating book recommendations delivered from on high represent the exact opposite of the credo pledged by most children’s librarians today: that the library’s role is to provide the widest possible array of titles and allow children to find the books they love. Yet Moore did more than anyone else in the first half of the 20^th century to encourage children of all races and incomes to read. To adopt a 21st century rallying cry, Bird notes, Anne Carroll Moore “was all about diverse books waaaaaay before anyone else was.”…

“How One Librarian Tried to Squash Goodnight Moon,” from Dan Kois (@dankois) in @Slate.

* André Malraux

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As we head to bed, we might recall that it was on this date in 1934 that a female black bear named Winnie at the London Zoo passed away at the age of 20. A favorite of A.A. Milne’s son, Christopher Robin, Winnie was the namesake of Christopher Robin’s his own stuffed bear- and the inspiration for his father’s Winnie-the-Pooh stories.