>In reading Jill Lepore’s New Yorker account of the battle between E. B. White and Anne Carroll Moore, I couldn’t help finding my sympathies more with the old lady. Lepore seems to favor E. B. and Katharine White because they’re more sophisticated, the cool kids. Moore’s the earnest, humorless battle-axe, given to such pronouncements as “reading is an end in itself; its object is lifelong pleasure and profit,” “reading should be more commonly treated as a sport of continuous interest in all schools,” and “both literature and children stoutly resist grade limitation.” What a bore.
Of course she had her limitations and of course she went down fighting, but children’s literature and librarianship owe her plenty.