Miss Moore Thought Otherwise: How Anne Carroll Moore Created Libraries for Children
Miss Moore Thought Otherwise: How Anne Carroll Moore Created Libraries for Children
Written by Jan Pinborough and Illustrated by Debby Atwell
Published by Houghton Mifflin in 2013
ISBN 978-0547- 47051
Grades 1 and up
Book Review
“Once in a big house in Limerick, Maine, there lived a little girl named Annie Carroll Moore. She had large gray eyes, seven older brothers, and ideas of her own.” In her first book for children, a picture book biography of a titan(ess) in the world of children’s literature, Jan Pinborough portrays Miss Moore as a strong-willed girl who grows into an accomplished woman. Today’s children will find remarkable the fact that when Anne Carroll Moore was a girl in the 1870s, children were not allowed to enter libraries and girls were not encouraged to read. Young Annie “thought otherwise” and she would grow up to do something about it. Although, as the author’s note cautions, Ann Carroll Moore did not single-handedly make mainstream the idea of children’s rooms in libraries, she was a tireless champion for appealing, accessible children’s rooms; an advocate who furthered the work of famous authors and illustrators; and a critic whose writings challenged and advanced the field of children’s literature. Debby Atwell’s acrylic folk-style paintings are as warm and inviting as the New York Public Library’s Central children’s room that they depict. Cameo images and portraits alternate with double-page spreads, tracing Moore’s life from childhood to retirement. Retirement for Miss Moore meant traveling “across the country, teaching more people how to make good libraries for children.” A delightful spark for conversations about the importance of libraries, access to books, and women’s roles and rights, Miss Moore Thought Otherwise is a welcome addition to the classroom library.
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Teaching Ideas: Invitations for Your Classroom
Grades 1 and Up
What is a library? We sometimes think of a library just as a physical space to house books, yet Anne Carroll Moore’s story reminds us that a library is so much more. Invite your students to explore the multi-faceted offerings of your public library, considering: What materials are available for loan? What programs and events are offered? What services and resources are provided? Interview the librarian and then work with your students to create a class composed book that answers the question: What is a library? If you are working with older students, you may find more material for discussion in our Classroom Bookshelf entry on Hands Around the Library: Protecting Egypt’s Treasured Books.
The Children’s Room. Anne Carroll Moore took great care to design children’s rooms in libraries to be inviting spaces. Study Debby Atwell’s image of the Central Children’s room in Miss Moore Thought Otherwise and the archival photograph of the same space. If possible, visit two different libraries with space designated for children in your community (perhaps your school and public libraries). If an actual visit is not possible, try to arrange for the librarian to provide a skype tour or visit the spaces yourself and bring back pictures to share with your students. Compare and contrast the physical spaces. How are books arranged and displayed? What kinds of seating is available? How is the room decorated? Are their items other than books available to children? After this comparison, invite children to design their ideal library space in pictures and writing.
Special Friends at the Library. Nicholas Knickerbocker played an important role in Anne Carroll Moore’s children’s room at the New York Public Library, making the children’s room an even more inviting place. With your students, read the New York Times blog entryabout an East Village public library branch that housed an American Girl doll available for check out (linked below in Online Resources). Other libraries host special visitors such as therapy dogs who love to have children read to them. Invite your students to compose fictional stories about library “friends” and their interactions with child library patrons or their adventures out in the world. (Anne Carroll Moore wrote two such stories about Nicholas. Artifacts related to Nicholas are depicted on the book’s website).
Libraries of All Kinds. Read Miss Moore Thought Otherwise as part of a Solar System model (see our Teachingwith Text Sets entry for an explanation of the Solar System model) along with Biblioburro: A True Story From Colombia, Miss Dorothy and Her Bookmobile (see our Classroom Bookshelf entry on these titles), Waiting for the Biblioburro, The Book Boat’s In, Inside the Books, That Book Woman and My Librarian is a Camel. Invite students to consider different forms that libraries can take and how a library’s physical form must be matched to the needs of a community. Invite students to examine library access in your local community. You might want to visit or skype with local librarians. Prepare for these conversations by developing interview questions around circulation patterns and programs designed to increase library access.
Grades 3 and Up
Changing Conceptions of Literature for Children. When Anne Carroll Moore was growing up in Maine, she read from a children’s magazine – St Nicholas. Use the links below to explore archived material from this magazine. Ask your students to compare this reading material with contemporary magazines for children (visit your school or local library to collect a sampling of nonfiction and literary magazines for a children audience). Create a comparison chart highlighting similarities and differences. Use this as a launching point for an investigation into the history of children’s literature and how this literature represents changing sociocultural views of children and childhood.
Pioneering Women. Anne Carroll Moore became a leader in her field at a time when limited employment options were available to women and women were not yet considered full citizens. To honor a long history of women’s accomplishments, read Miss Moore Thought Otherwise along with other picture book biographies of women who defied gender stereotypes. Suitable titles featured in past Classroom Bookshelf Blog entires include Me…Jane and The Watcher (Jane Goodall), Night Flight(Amelia Earhart), Annie and Helen and Helen’s Big World (Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan), Life in the Ocean(Sylvia Earle), and Queen of the Falls (Annie Edson Taylor). Consider the motivations, supports, challenges, and accomplishments of each of these women.
The Age of E-Books and Book Apps. We have entered a new era of reading practices now that e-readers, smartphones, and iPads have become more readily available. Make arrangements for your students to explore some of the available e-books (fiction, nonfiction, and picture books). Discuss the e-reading experience and how it may be similar to and differ from the experience of reading a print book. You may want to delve into the history of bookmaking. Have your students create a timeline of book printing technologies and predict how the reading experience may continue to change as new technologies emerge. The “History of Books andPrinting” research guides maintained by the New York Public Library (see link below) may be useful to you.
Social Justice
Grades 5 and Up
Access to Books. Ann Carroll Moore’s life work focused on putting books into the hands of children. Researcher Susan Neuman has correlated access to books with reading achievement of children. Have your students read David Borstein’s opinion piece from the New York times titled “A Book in Every Home and Then Some” and accessible selections from Neuman’s co-authored article in Reading Research Quarterly: Access to Print in Low-Income and Middle-Income Communities: An Ecological Study of Four Neighborhoods . Invite your students to consider how they might learn more about how books are made available in socio-economically diverse communities. What role do libraries play? What else might be done to ensure greater equity in access to books?
Further Explorations
Debby Atwell
http://debbyatwell.com
New York Public Library: Central Children’s Room
http://legacy.www.nypl.org/branch/collections/dch.html
NYPL Digital Gallery: Children’s Room Central Building
http://digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/dgkeysearchdetail.cfm?trg=1&strucID=693881&imageID=805985&total=2349&num=2300&word=New%20York%20Public%20Library&s=3¬word=&d=&c=&f=2&k=1&lWord=&lField=&sScope=&sLevel=&sLabel=&sort=&imgs=20&pos=2301&e=w
New York Times: A Book in Every Home and Then Some
The Online Books Page: Serial Archive Listings for St. Nicholas
New York Times: A Doll’s Magic, Free to Renew
Therapy Dog Helps Children Read at Princeton Public Library
National Women’s History Museum
New York Times: Biblioburro
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/20/world/americas/20burro.html
The Bookmobile
Wisconsin Library Heritage Center: Bookmobiles
Michigan Lighthouse Conservancy: Traveling Libraries
Pack Horse Librarians: Photo Gallery
History of Books and Printing
Books
Appelt, K. & Schmitzer, J.C. (2001). Down Cut Shin Creek: The packhorse librarians of Kentucky. New York: HarperCollins.
Brown, M. (2011). Waiting for the Biblioburro. Illustrated by J. Para. Berkeley, CA: Tricycle Books.
Bunting, E. (2008). Our library. Ill. by M. Smith. New York: Clarion Books.
Buzzeo, Toni. (2012). Inside the books: Readers and libraries around the world. Illustrated by J. Daly. Madison, WI: Upstart Books.
Cummins, J. (1996). The inside-outside book of libraries. Illustrated by R. Munroe. New York: Dragonfly Books. .
Henson, H. (2008). That book woman. Ill. by D. Small. New York: Atheneum.
Hopkins, L.B. (1990). Good books, good times! Ill. by H. Stevenson. New York: HarperCollins.
Hopkins, L.B. (2011). I am the book: Poems. Ill. by Yayo. New York: Holiday House.
Houston, G. (2011). Miss Dorothy and her bookmobile. Illustrated by S. C. Lamb.
Lewis, J.P. (2005). Please bury me in the library. Ill. by K.M. Stone. Orlando, FL: Harcourt.
Mora, P. (1997). Tomás and the library lady. Ill. By R. Colón. New York: Dragonfly Books.
Roth, S.L. & Abouraya, K.L. (2012). Hands around the library: Protecting Egypt’s treasured books. Ill. by S. L. Roth. New York: Dial.
http://classroombookshelf.blogspot.com/2012/10/hands-around-library-protecting-egypts.html
Roth, S.L. & Abouraya, K.L. (2012). Hands around the library: Protecting Egypt’s treasured books. Ill. by S. L. Roth. New York: Dial.
http://classroombookshelf.blogspot.com/2012/10/hands-around-library-protecting-egypts.html
Ruurs, M. (2005). My librarian is a camel: How books are brought to children around the world. Honesdale, PA: Boyds Mills.
Stewart, S. (1995). The library. Ill. by D. Small. New York: Farrar, Straus, & Giroux.
Winter, J. (2010). Biblioburro: A true story from Colombia. New York: Beach Lane Books.
Filed under: Biography & Memoirs, Nonfiction Picture Books, Picture Books
About Erika Thulin Dawes
Erika is a professor of language and literacy at Lesley University. A former classroom teacher, reading specialist, and literacy supervisor, she now teaches courses in children’s literature, early literacy, and literacy methods. Erika is the co-author of Learning to Write with Purpose, Teaching with Text Sets, and Teaching to Complexity.
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