Reflections of a Blogger on Blogging

The author at her "day" job

I'm Joy Dickerson and I'm a kid's lit blogger. I've been a kid-lit junky my whole life and I love it. No apologies. Blogging about kid's lit gives it shape and form for me and strengthens the bond. I appreciate my readers.


Children's literature is an all-or-nothing type of love. I love children's literature and enjoy sampling broadly in the various genres. But if you don't like children's literature, POOF!, it doesn't exist for you. You can go decades without thinking about it until some particular title goes viral among the young and you see it everywhere--like Harry Potter and Hunger Games. You're now aware of it, but you still don't read it. Well, I do read it.


Two major themes I monitor in the material I read are gender roles and the hero journey. I'm always looking for books in which all characters may properly develop their potential independent of societal norms--and they are few and far between. Even the vaunted Hunger Games can't figure out what to do with Katniss's sexuality--and she's a great character. It's fun in the Hunger Games trilogy to see the men's lives revolve around Katniss and her instabilities.

One of the best adult books
I've ever read.

The hero journey is wonderful to track. Even lame books can have great evocations of the hero journey, or the movement through certain rites of passage to true adulthood. The hero journey subtext is one of the elements of children's literature that draws me back again and again. And it is pretty much lacking in most adult literature.


And I can vouch for the fact that people lacking idyllic childhoods can retain a love of children's literature. We're not all starry-eyed elementary school teachers (like my sister Robin, lol). I know for myself that I still have developmental issues to explore, and children's literature explores them. Would you rather be liked or right? Can a society without individuality succeed? What is family? How do you define courage? Are some people expendable? What if there is no happy ending? How do you grow up and still retain a sense of magic? Why do humans do so much suffering? Why are people cruel? Easy to be hard easy to say no...


I actually wonder if children's literature is read more by adults than children. Is it secretly a subgenre of adult literature? Kid's lit is not for the illiterate or faint of heart--it is as filled with tragedy and sometimes the reading level is surprisingly high. Hunger Games is a good example of a young adult novel filled with death, poignancy, and sophisticated structure and language.

One of the best children's
novels I've ever read

I have been blessed by my Eager Reader's Best of the Best list (http://www.eagerreaders.com). It has included classics like The Count of Monte Cristo, Pride and Prejudice, and David Copperfield, as well as picture books, Dr. Seuss, cartoons, and books aimed at every age of child (including those thick-cardboard baby books). I've also read lots of science fiction, which I love. (Even adult science fiction is really for the juvenile in us all.) The list is skewed, of course, and is a bit long in the tooth. I agreed to read every book on it as a dare to myself--could I sustain this goal over a long period of time? What value would I gain from it. Well, I have gained a huge amount of value...I have put myself in touch with something larger than myself. Blogging has given me a forum into which I may share even the stupidest of my opinions and openly own them. Blogging has brought meaning to my writing. I want to thank my sister Robin and my nephew Jake for the support and prodding that moved me into this adventure, this hero journey of my own.


The Blogging Process


I am more read than I ever was before--957 readings, at the current moment. I know that probably 1/3 of the hits were in error or by non-human entities and phishing schemes, but that still leaves nearly 700 legitimate hits. What does this mean? It doesn't mean I'm popular--many blogs get tons more hits. To some extent it means that my friends and relatives are indulgent and dutifully go to the blog to look at new entries whether they are interested or not. OK, let's take another third off for that. Now I'm at 300 legitamate look-sees. I think that's pretty respectable, given the limited topic (mostly children's and some adult literature reviews) and lack of bells and whistles (still can't figure out how to embed a film clip).

The author at a quilt show.

Blogging is fun. I enjoy the reading, writing, thinking, designing, and researching that goes into each of my posts. I love putting the pieces together. Blogging combines the things I love the most. Most of my blog posts have been positive reviews...I'm more interested in saying what's in the book, what the book brings to the table, so to speak. I will occasionally condemn a book, but that's rare.


I check my blog stats several times a day. The stats page keeps track of number of hits, which post was read, where the hit came from geographically, and where the hit came from on the 'net. As of this writing, I've had 957 hits across 41 posts from every continent except Antarctica (and, unless penguins learn to read, I don't see that changing) and from innumerable and undecipherable Internet sources. I post new blog entries on average of one per week on Facebook and Linked In. I especially love the little map on which the countries turn green if I've had a hit from them and get greener with as hits rack up. I like the "All Time" button--the planet glows with patches of green.


Thanks for reading. Thanks for greening my planet through literature. And keep on hitting my blog.