Don't ever write just for a trend or fad, because it's a moving target, and by the time you get your work out there, the trend or fad is gone. Dig deep; don't be afraid to write fiercely. Expose your heart.
Jane YolenRead
I think picture books should stretch children. I think they should be full of wonderful, amazing words.
Interpretation
Picture books should inspire and enrich children's vocabulary and imagination.
In this quote, Jane Yolen emphasizes the importance of picture books in a child's development. She believes that these books should not only entertain but also challenge children, helping them to explore new words and concepts, thus fostering their creativity and language skills.
In practice
In a parent-teacher meeting discussing effective ways to promote literacy.
Don't ever write just for a trend or fad, because it's a moving target, and by the time you get your work out there, the trend or fad is gone. Dig deep; don't be afraid to write fiercely. Expose your heart.
I don't care whether the story is real or fantastical. I tell the story that needs to be told.
What makes a good book? Scholars and critics have been debating that question for decades. I like books that touch my head and my heart at the same time.
Just write. If you have to make a choice, if you say, 'Oh well, I'm going to put the writing away until my children are grown,' then you don't really want to be a writer. If you want to be a writer, you do your writing... If you don't do it, you probably don't want to be a writer, you just want to have written and be famous—which is very different.
I believe that culture begins in the cradle . . .To do without tales and stories and books is to lose humanity's past, is to have no star map for our future.
Childrens books change lives. Stories pour into the hearts of children and help make them what they become.
Ideas are only lethal if you suppress and don't discuss them. Ignorance is not bliss, it's stupid. Banning books shows you don't trust your kids to think and you don't trust yourself to be able to talk to them.
[I]t's not just the books under fire now that worry me. It is the books that will never be written. The books that will never be read. And all due to the fear of censorship. As always, young readers will be the real losers.
We now accept the fact that learning is a lifelong process of keeping abreast of change. And the most pressing task is to teach people how to learn.
In a library, you can find small miracles and truth, and you might find something that will make you laugh so hard that you will get shushed, in the friendliest way. I have found sanctuary in libraries my whole life, and there is sanctuary there now, from the war, from the storms of our families and our own minds. Libraries are like mountains or meadows or creeks: sacred space. So this afternoon, I'll walk to the library.
Education is here placed among the articles of public care, not that it would be proposed to take its ordinary branches out of the hands of private enterprise, which manages so much better all the concerns to which it is equal, but a public institution can alone supply those sciences which, though rarely called for, are yet necessary to complete the circle, all the parts of which contribute to the improvement of the country, and some of them to its preservation.
A basic element of the American dream is equal access to education as the lubricant of social and economic mobility.
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