A librarian pushes for Push

Adalena Kavanagh, a New York City librarian, gives a thoughtful and spirited defense of Push, the book that's the basis of the movie Precious. She writes:

As a librarian, when students demand a book, I am inclined to give it to them. We struggle every day to make literacy important to our students, so when they find something that actually speaks to them we can’t ignore it, or wish it would go away, no matter how controversial it is, or how uncomfortable it makes us feel. To call Precious a stereotype is to believe that readers cannot distinguish between a character’s experience and a racial group’s reality, and that is giving readers and Sapphire very little credit.

I haven't read Push or seen Precious, but I think this is a fair argument. And I think this falls well within the "is it better that kids are reading if this is what they're reading?" dilemma. I always err on the side of kids reading. Huzzah!