Interview with Ginny Moore Kruse

In December 2007, Bridget Zinn conducted an interview with Ginny Moore Kruse, the director of the CCBC from 1976 until 2002. The interview appeared in the Spring 2008 issue of the Friends of the CCBC Newsletter (Number 1, 2008). Bonus excerpts from that interview appear here.

Ginny discusses her hope that the Geisel Award will have a positive impact on the number of books published for beginning readers, including books that reflect our multicultural society.

Most of the books for newly independent readers feature animal characters or white characters . . . That’s not good enough. There is such a great need for newly independent readers to see themselves [in books] and for all children to see people who are not like themselves in books. So these are not just books for certain readers—they will have a great value to the newly independent readers of color, but everyone needs these books. You have to have publishers who "get it" and care about it.

I don’t know that any publishers are really publishing any differently because there’s a Geisel Award. Because of the Printz Award, some really distinguished writing is being published for older teens, writing that would probably never have been published before the Printz Award . . . [But] I didn’t have a sense last year that any of the books I examined had been published because of the Geisel Award. This is only its third year. If there is going to be an impact [from the Geisel Award], we might see it two years from now, from publishers who say, “We really want to win the Geisel Award, and we’re going to have distinguished writing in our easy readers.” It’s too soon to expect that.

Ginny’s involvement with intellectual freedom issues includes serving on the local (Madison-area) advisory committee for the ACLU of Wisconsin.

A year-and-a-half ago, we provided a hundred Wisconsin public libraries with copies of the DVD The Exonerated. [That was] before the capital punishment referendum came up in the Wisconsin election of 2006. The whole idea of providing a complimentary copy of something to public libraries was something that seemed logical to me . . . I’m very proud of having the chance to be involved with that project.

More recently, we organized a Banned Books Week Read-In [in September, 2007]. It was at the Open Book Café at UW-Madison’s College Library. We had readers from many walks of life, including teenagers . . . One of the teens read from The Giver by Lois Lowry and another read the picture book And Tango Makes Three [by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell].

We invited many people to read, and the most wonderful thing about it was the readers were racially and culturally and age-wise diverse, and the audience was likewise. We were all so thrilled about it.

There were probably seventy-five to one hundred people who came to the public reading of formerly banned books. The event launched Banned Books Week in this area. So that was a huge satisfaction for me to be deeply involved in . . . It brought together everything about intellectual freedom, and it happened because the local ACLU offices collaborated with area librarians and other kindred spirits.

Ginny’s interest in international children’s literature and literacy was behind two significant trips since her retirement.

I’ve been involved in two international service projects since I retired from the CCBC. I went with Anne Pellowski to South Africa in 2004 and to South America last spring.

In 2004 our group went to two areas in South Africa's Limpopo Province. That was prior to going to the IBBY Congress in Capetown. I’d always wanted to go to an IBBY Congress, but they’re always in September, which is a very busy CCBC time . . . [In South Africa] I assisted in a service project [working with] Venda women who are involved in childcare of very young children to create books in their home language for the children.

Anne invited me to go with her and others to South America last May. We went to Bolivia, where we were in Cochabamba. We were [also] in Peru, in Lima, doing something similar [to what we did in South Africa] with women who could either be training the trainers, or who were themselves from areas where Quechua or Aymara was the home language.

[The idea behind these projects] is to affirm the home language of the young child. Not to say the young child should only speak Quechua the rest of his life and never learn Spanish, and not saying that the child should only speak Venda all of her life and never learn English, but it’s important to be proud of who you are and who your family is . . . yes, you do have to learn certain skills in order to move in the outside world, but it’s also very important to know who you are and to be very confident of your pride in your own heritage. That’s what Anne Pellowski’s cloth book workshops are all about now; I’m just so honored to have been a part of two of them.

Read an earlier Friends' interview with Ginny at the time of her retirement.

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	Current Board Book Sales Join the Friends "Meet the Experts" Interviews Interview with Ginny Moore Kruse In December 2007, Bridget Zinn conducted an interview with Ginny Moore Kruse, the director of the CCBC from 1976 until 2002. The interview appeared in the Spring 2008 issue of the Friends of the CCBC Newsletter (Number 1, 2008). Bonus excerpts from that interview appear here. Ginny discusses her hope that the Geisel Award will have a positive impact on the number of books published for beginning readers, including books that reflect our multicultural society. Most of the books for newly independent readers feature animal characters or white characters . . . That’s not good enough. There is such a great need for newly independent readers to see themselves [in books] and for all children to see people who are not like themselves in books. So these are not just books for certain readers—they will have a great value to the newly independent readers of color, but everyone needs these books. You have to have publishers who "get it" and care about it. I don’t know that any publishers are really publishing any differently because there’s a Geisel Award. Because of the Printz Award, some really distinguished writing is being published for older teens, writing that would probably never have been published before the Printz Award . . . [But] I didn’t have a sense last year that any of the books I examined had been published because of the Geisel Award. This is only its third year. If there is going to be an impact [from the Geisel Award], we might see it two years from now, from publishers who say, “We really want to win the Geisel Award, and we’re going to have distinguished writing in our easy readers.” It’s too soon to expect that. Ginny’s involvement with intellectual freedom issues includes serving on the local (Madison-area) advisory committee for the ACLU of Wisconsin. A year-and-a-half ago, we provided a hundred Wisconsin public libraries with copies of the DVD The Exonerated. [That was] before the capital punishment referendum came up in the Wisconsin election of 2006. The whole idea of providing a complimentary copy of something to public libraries was something that seemed logical to me . . . I’m very proud of having the chance to be involved with that project. More recently, we organized a Banned Books Week Read-In [in September, 2007]. It was at the Open Book Café at UW-Madison’s College Library. We had readers from many walks of life, including teenagers . . . One of the teens read from The Giver by Lois Lowry and another read the picture book And Tango Makes Three [by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell]. We invited many people to read, and the most wonderful thing about it was the readers were racially and culturally and age-wise diverse, and the audience was likewise. We were all so thrilled about it. There were probably seventy-five to one hundred people who came to the public reading of formerly banned books. The event launched Banned Books Week in this area. So that was a huge satisfaction for me to be deeply involved in . . . It brought together everything about intellectual freedom, and it happened because the local ACLU offices collaborated with area librarians and other kindred spirits. Ginny’s interest in international children’s literature and literacy was behind two significant trips since her retirement. I’ve been involved in two international service projects since I retired from the CCBC. I went with Anne Pellowski to South Africa in 2004 and to South America last spring. In 2004 our group went to two areas in South Africa's Limpopo Province. That was prior to going to the IBBY Congress in Capetown. I’d always wanted to go to an IBBY Congress, but they’re always in September, which is a very busy CCBC time . . . [In South Africa] I assisted in a service project [working with] Venda women who are involved in childcare of very young children to create books in their home language for the children. Anne invited me to go with her and others to South America last May. We went to Bolivia, where we were in Cochabamba. We were [also] in Peru, in Lima, doing something similar [to what we did in South Africa] with women who could either be training the trainers, or who were themselves from areas where Quechua or Aymara was the home language. [The idea behind these projects] is to affirm the home language of the young child. Not to say the young child should only speak Quechua the rest of his life and never learn Spanish, and not saying that the child should only speak Venda all of her life and never learn English, but it’s important to be proud of who you are and who your family is . . . yes, you do have to learn certain skills in order to move in the outside world, but it’s also very important to know who you are and to be very confident of your pride in your own heritage. That’s what Anne Pellowski’s cloth book workshops are all about now; I’m just so honored to have been a part of two of them. Read an earlier Friends' interview with Ginny at the time of her retirement.