Stinky Cheese! Ambassador for Children’s Literature

The New York Times
By MOTOKO RICH
Published: January 3, 2008

Jon Scieszka, the author of witty and subversive children’s favorites like “The True Story of the Three Little Pigs” and “The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales,” is to be named the country’s first national ambassador for young people’s literature on Thursday, a kind of children’s book version of the Library of Congress’s poet laureate program.

Mr. Scieszka, 53, who has written more than 25 books in the last two decades, is to be named to this new position by James H. Billington, the librarian of Congress. Mr. Billington said that unlike the role of the poet laureate, which does not come with specific responsibilities, this one calls for Mr. Scieszka (pronounced SHEH-ska) to be a spokesman who will travel and speak to groups of children, parents and teachers “to evangelize the need for reading.” He will also speak at Children’s Book Week in New York in May and the National Book Festival in Washington in September.

... The idea for the ambassadorship had been raised a number of times in previous years but finally came to fruition last fall when Robin Adelson, executive director of the Children’s Book Council, a trade association for children’s book publishers, contacted John Cole, director of the Center for the Book, an arm of the Library of Congress that promotes books, libraries and literacy and has established centers in every state and Washington, D.C.

... Ms. Adelson said that with headlines about declines in children’s reading and test scores, the timing for the appointment was apt. “In a world where children have so many different forms of entertainment vying for their attention,” she said, “it does take someone special to remind them that there is this vast body of literature out there that is fabulous entertainment.”

Mr. Billington said the position augmented efforts to reach out to kids on Web sites including loc.gov and Americaslibrary.gov. “We have organized to make sure that the central role of books and reading is not obscured by the new technology, but is rather enriched and enlivened by it,” Mr. Billington said.

... Mr. Sciezska said that above all he hoped to encourage parents and teachers to support whatever reading their kids want to do. “People say, ‘All my son will read is “Captain Underpants,”’ or ‘My son is crazy about shark books, is that O.K.?’” he said. “I want to be the person to say, ‘Yeah, that’s really O.K., as long as he’s motivated to want to read.’”

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