Margin for Surprise Quotes

“Effort has been made sometimes, even in libraries, to plan for groups rather than for individuals. Books are bought because they appeal to many young people, and books important only to a few are often neglected. Libraries are organized to emphasize the reading trends of the many; arrangements of books are by reader interest, supposedly to capture the attention and fill the needs of all young people. Yet it is possible that something very important to a young person might be found in a dingy little volume tucked away in the stacks.”
― Ruth Hill Viguers, Margin for Surprise: About Books, Children, and Librarians

“When I hear someone say, “Yes, it’s a good book but our children don’t like it,” I am inclined to think that either the librarian herself does not like it or has not read it. If a book is really good, if it is really alive, it is a potentially important experience for some children, perhaps only a few, but it may have a more far-reaching significance to those few than would a hundred mediocre books.”
― Ruth Hill Viguers, Margin for Surprise: About Books, Children, and Librarians

“Important books do not have to teach. We have long known that. In fact, we take a very superior attitude toward the books for children of the eighteenth century, which were written so patently to teach manners or morals or to give information. Yet if we examine a large number of new books intended supposedly for children’s pleasure reading, we see that many, many people — authors and publishers alike, and parents, because they buy them — feel that a good children’s book must be written with an acknowledged purpose.”
― Ruth Hill Viguers, Margin for Surprise: About Books, Children, and Librarians

“Success today is too often measured by statistics. Large circulation figures are very impressive to people outside of the profession and to library directors who are not familiar with the aims of the public library children’s room. However, in spite of the emphasis on tangible proof, the children’s library which accomplishes its true aims will make itself felt so positively that even the most pragmatic board of trustees should be convinced of its worth.”
― Ruth Hill Viguers, Margin for Surprise: About Books, Children, and Librarians

“I believe that the public library children’s room will always be necessary; but, if it is to survive, society in general must recognize it as necessary. I see no assurance of its survival unless it accomplishes what no other agency can.”
― Ruth Hill Viguers, Margin for Surprise: About Books, Children, and Librarians

“Today if we persist in giving children vocabularized books, patterned writing, informational books that answer all their questions before they have asked, but that do nothing to stimulate curiosity; if we pay too much attention to the tricks used to make books sell rather than to the contents of the books; if we do not make easily available the stories and books that give children the adventures and exciting experiences they want, they will reject books. After all, the comics are always available and on television something always happens.”
― Ruth Hill Viguers, Margin for Surprise: About Books, Children, and Librarians

“I once heard a panel discussion among magazine editors, who voiced their common greatest problem: to find people who can write. A generation has grown up lacking skill in composition and any sense of literary style. Though I doubt that any study of the matter has been made, my own experiences have borne out a theory that people who grow up hearing and reading folk and fairy tales throughout childhood develop not only lively imaginations, but originality in the use of words.”
― Ruth Hill Viguers, Margin for Surprise: About Books, Children, and Librarians