News

I’m somewhat hamstrung because my issue didn’t get delivered and I can’t read it online, but thank you, Glynnis, for calling out the New Yorker for not crediting me. I don’t actually think Thurman knows I’m alive but it’s always fun to launch accusations:

Here’s the bigger question: why this piece now? And going in, the answer(s) actually seemed somewhat clear at least. Just last month Jezebel writer Lizzie Skurnick published Shelf Discovery, a collection of essays based on her enormously popular Jezebel column Fine Lines, which is devoted to reviewing Young Adult classics from the 70’s and 80’s. Shortly after publication the book came close to hitting a top 500 Amazon ranking. A quick look at the index reveals title like, Are You There God, It’s Me Margaret, Tiger Eyes, Harriet the Spy, Island of the Blue Dolphins, Jacob Have I Loved, and yes Little House on the Prairie, which technically was published in the 1930’s but enjoyed renewed relevance thanks to the 70’s TV show (Skurnick refers to the LH books “As the Most Important Work of Our Time” – hence the title of this post). The other day at a Shelf Discovery bookstore reading I attended, Skurnick suggested that if she hadn’t started the Fine Lines column someone else would have, because it was just the right time for it. Which makes sense since the generation who grew up on these books is now at the age where they are having children of their own (or know a lot of people who are having children of their own, as the case may be). So classic YA books are in the air! And yet Thurman doesn’t mention Skurnick, or even spend any time in her piece dissecting why the books themselves were so popular, for that matter.

Read the rest here — there is an impressive segue to Sarah Palin.