Discusses the role of children's literature in relationship to the current societal problems of children. It is concluded that the responsibility of writers for children is to do the best work they are capable of and that the purpose of literature is to give pleasure to the reader. (MES)

Discusses the importance of narrative in the mind's development. Considers a historical view of children's literature and the views of authors and publishers concerning this literature. Discusses novels that deal with children's problems. (RJC)

This analysis of "Library Trends" from 1952-86 provides an overall description of authorship and subject content, general comparison of early and late volumes, and more detailed descriptions--including citation analysis--of the three pairs of issues bearing identical titles. Tables present data on authorship, subjects, and citations. (1…

Reflects on the connections between narrative and lived experience, focusing particularly on a set of three dyads that suggest a relationship of tension: (1) storing life/storying life; (2) truth/fiction; and (3) collection/selection. (TB)

Explains how a teacher, concerned about women's issues, learns to trust her own sense of things while at the same time examines knowledge available to her externally. Contains a first-person introduction and a third-person story about how a teacher will deal with a school mandate to teach Hemingway's "The Old Man and the Sea." (TB)

Describes a successful school visit by a children's author. Provides advice on expenses and fundraising, planning activities, and the "big day." (RS)

Presents an author's frustrations with poor editing in the form of advice from an editor who has been edited. Discusses deciding what to change, grammar and style, and knowing the audience and the author. (RS)

Students can learn to understand prose by carefully listening to the author's voice. The paper gives examples of prose in standard block form and in a poetic form, explaining why students find the poetic form more comprehensible. Students' awareness of rhetoric can be developed through the Myers Briggs inventory. (SM)

Offers the author's (a noted writer of children's novels and picture books) personal theories about mixing mirth and mayhem. (SR)

Lists and discusses briefly six "jumpstarters" for writers, intended to "rev them up and keep them going." (SR)

Discusses a bulletin board that highlights authors' birthdays and children's birthdays for each month of the year, and related classroom activities that get students excited about authors and about reading. (SR)

Reviews "Author's Insights" (edited by Don Gallo) in which 12 distinguished writers of young-adult books have their say about how literature and writing ought to be taught in secondary schools. (SR)

Presents transcript of an interview with Robert Cormier, winner of the Margaret A. Edwards Award for authors of books for young adults. Various aspects of Cormier's works are discussed, including realism; characterization; the darker themes that he uses and their origins; the influence of Catholicism; and censorship. (LRW)

Relates the author's personal experiences growing up with and writing science fiction. Discusses symbols that work themselves out in the writing of science fiction. (PRA)

Explores what it feels like for a science fiction writer to have reality alone to hold the reader's interest. Discusses the author's novels "Interstellar Pig" and "Spirit Houses," the influence of the Thai culture on the second work, and the influence of the Thai culture on the author's ideas about fantasy and science fiction.…