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Books are keys to wisdom's treasure.

Article Excerpt
English professors who study children's literature are often mildly defensive about their work, and with good reason. As Francelia Butler noted in a 1973 article in the New York Times, "To many humanists ... the most embarrassing literature to study is not [about] autoeroticism or cunnilingus. On such works scholars pride themselves on their broadmindedness. What truly embarrasses them is literature for their own children--'kiddy lit,' they call it." The challenge for us has always been to wrest the criticism of children's literature away from what Jon Stott called the "cuddly bunny school of criticism," and he and Butler, along with Anne Devereaux Jordan, formed the Children's Literature Association in 1973 in order to promote the scholarly study of children's literature. So when we get our hands on books like Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy, or Zusak's The Book Thief, we fall in literary love--because they engage the big questions...

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