Children's Librarian says:

I normally just read your blog to get a sense of how people with views different than my own feel about certain “hot topics” so to speak. (I consider myself to be pretty moderate and am not affiliated with the Democrats or Republicans because I personally don’t think either party has it right.) But I’m a children’s librarian who lived and worked in public libraries in Massachusetts for 9 years and so I’ve been meaning to shed a little light on this to give a fuller piece to how these things work in a library as it were. First of all, I agree with everything that your bloggers have written. The librarian was ungrateful. She should have just accepted the books and either kept them to replace worn out copies when the time came– as it inevitably will!– or to give to other libraries. When we received donations at the last library I worked at, we always accepted them graciously and then quietly did whatever we wanted with them. Sometimes the books were given to the Friends for their book sale, sometimes we kept copies as future replacements, and sometimes we added books to the collection. I think the only time I didn’t accept donations was when it was from self-published authors and that was because we had a policy that books had to be professionally reviewed to be added to the collection. (This was more of a saving our own asses thing than anything else because librarians don’t just sit and read all day, we’re too busy helping people and doing programs!) And when I had to say no, I tried to be as gracious as possible. I never lectured, I just said it was library policy or whatever.

I’m sure there are many libraries in and around Boston that she could have quietly given the books to. Many inner suburbs aren’t uber-wealthy like Cambridge. i can think of several off the top of my head. Not all school libraries have a librarian to help kids find books or to even update the collections. Many do not because of budget constraints. And Seuss’ books are very popular for many, many reasons. So it’s not hard to imagine that there would be worn out copies in need of replacement. That would have been a much better use of her actions. The only part of her letter I agree with is that the books should have gone to a needier school in the first place. But I’m not sure how much of that is Melania’s fault or what was done by other First Ladies. I suspect similar incidences happened in years past though.

I also agree that she’s being hypocritical by criticizing Melania about Seuss. Yes, Seuss is controversial in some respects. But you know what? So are a lot of classic children’s books! You can find things to criticize in Marry Poppins– and her author– Narnia and many others. Many are a product of the time they were written. It doesn’t make all the author’s work bad and it certainly doesn’t mean Seuss was racist. I don’t know enough about him to say more than that, but judging by his work, I suspect the answer is more nuanced. And that’s another place Soeiro gets it wrong. She really did do this because she doesn’t like Trump or anything related to him, that much is clear. I don’t like him either. But I can still see the nuances and as I’ve said, I would have just accepted the books. This reeks of elitism to be sure. As for her list, it was ridiculous and highly political. There are other books she could have chosen that would have gotten the point across much more subtly. One is the Tacky the Penguin series by Helen Lester. It’s an older series that addresses some of the topics she was talking about, but in a much gentler way. And they’re hilarious.

Of the responses I’ve read from former co-workers and friends, they would agree with you. And many are very liberal. This is coming off wrong to both sides of the aisle. Please don’t judge librarians by this one bad apple. We are as varied in our beliefs and political leanings as many in other professions. I didn’t always agree with my co-workers, the ALA, or the people in the community in which I worked, but I did have the sense to accept a gift graciously, or at least I hope I did. I wish Soeiro could say the same.