Gary Soto, the Art of Not Writing for Children, and the Public Shame Theater

I was flipping through my most recent copy of Horn Book feeling pretty special since I’ve an article in there (“Apples to Elephants: Artists in Animation”) and when I get to the back I see a mention of a book I’ve never heard of before: Why I Don’t Write Children’s Literature by Gary Soto.

If I missed the book it’s not too terribly surprising. The publisher is a university press (University Press of New England, no less). Not my usual bag. And I’m not going to necessarily debate the relative...