Finding Friendship in a Book

I've always been a fairly inarticulate critic, an especially embarrassing quality in a writer.  I know when I love something, but I get a little tongue-tied when I try to explain the reasons. It's a visceral thing, that art-love connection, hard for me to translate into language.

So I always ooohh and aaahh when I come across an especially articulate explanation of an arty-phenomenon. It happened just yesterday, when reading Kathleen T. Horning's interview with Norton Juster and Jules Feiffer in the October issue of SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL.

Feiffer describes exactly what I'm trying to get at with this Literary Friendships blog thing.

"One of the wonderful things about children's books is that a kid can read something and find in the book a friendship, an ally, something he doesn't have at home. He can create a relationship with the text that is profound, in a way that is different from any other experience he has. And then he can look back on this book and others as one of the big changing moments of his life."

Exactly. Thank you, Jules Feiffer.

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