Sadly, I think it is time to say goodbye to Childtastic.
Many of you who have followed me for years will have realised that I don’t really post on here anymore. This is because I am no longer working in children’s books and literacy/literature. I loved my time being a librarian and studying children’s literature, but now I am focusing more on general literacy and literature.
Part of my reason for leaving the field was due to a growing disillusionment with children’s literature. There are many wonderful authors and illustrators working out there who are amazing. However, there are also a lot of people interested solely in making money from children’s literature and the results often speak for themselves. I am not in the business of naming names but suffice it to say that I was finding it harder and harder to recommend books to children that stood out for their quality and respect for children’s intelligence and I felt that there were other people better qualified than me to step in and take over.
Additionally, it seems as if my site is often visited by schools as some sort of activity to comment on posts – perhaps an IT / computer literacy lesson. While I don’t mind this per se, I often receive rude and sometimes offensive posts which I then have to block. This is not the sort of interaction I had hoped for when I set up the site.
I would like to thank all of you who have supported me over the years – readers, writers, illustrator, publishers. You know who you are and I wish you every success in the world of children’s publishing. Please continue to fly the flag for quality reading!
I will make this site private in around a week – I just want this post up so you know what is happening to the site before I take it down.
