A literature ambassador said most children’s books are ‘crud.’ Now there are calls for him to step down

The literature world is up in arms after a prominent author, who also serves as the national ambassador for young people’s literature, denigrated the quality of the majority of children’s literature.  Mac Barnett recently published an essay collection for adults, titled Make Believe: On Telling Stories to Children. In his book, he wrote, “So I now offer Barnett’s Addendum to Sturgeon’s Law: Maybe more like 94.7 percent of kids’ books are crud.”  The sentence references science fi...