Gore Interview, Children's Books, etc.

Hope everyone is doing well and staying sane!

I really enjoyed listening to the Clelia Gore interview, I'm totally jealous that she gets to read children's books for a living. Like some of you already mentioned, it was interesting to hear that most of her job involves reading a lot of bad writing. I admire her patience, as I find it hard sometimes to motivate myself to read even good writing. But I also imagine it must be fun sometimes, like watching a movie that's so bad it's good. If I were in her position, though, I fear I would find it hard to trust my instincts in figuring out what is good writing and what is bad (she's been doing it a while so she's obviously a pro). But I'm not sure how I would navigate around constantly wondering, am I being too harsh? Maybe if I don't like this, how do I know another reader won't love it? Reading feels like a such a personal, subjective thing; how can one person be the gatekeeper of what is good and bad? It kind of goes back to what we talked about at the beginning of the semester -- how many bestsellers must there be floating around in used bookstores or on your grandma's computer, never to be discovered by mainstream publishers?

I also enjoyed reading everyone's responses to the reading. Re: Hayleigh's post, it's crazy to think about how much children's recreational habits/reading habits have changed over the past 10-15 years, with iPads and e-readers. I remember when I was little (pre-iPad days), I had this electronic book reader (?) that looked like this:
 It had books that fit into it, and you could press the pen to a word and have the thing read the word out loud. This was my first experience of any kind of electronic reading experience, and I remember thinking of it more as a toy than a book. I can only imagine what kind of cool, multi-media stuff kids can get into these days using way more sophisticated technology. I hope, though, that kids are still interested in reading physical books. It's SO cliche, but there is something special about a physical book, especially when you're a kid. When I was little, I would make my mom read me a huge stack of books before bed. I loved how different they all were -- different shapes and sizes, kinds of paper, even different smells. They were all part of the story to me. My favorite book was called "At the Beach" - I forget who wrote it, and I can't find it online because it's really old, but it had these beautiful black and white illustrations. The book itself was from my mom's childhood, and had a really good paper-y, basement-y smell that I thought smelled like hot sand on the beach, so it only added to the reading experience.

Unrelated: Like some of you in Davis' American Renaissance class, I just started Moby Dick, which I tried to read a couple summers ago but abandoned a quarter of the way through. I am loving it this time, though. Something about being stuck inside makes reading about a grand sea adventure particularly appealing. It's also quite funny. I'm always pleasantly surprised when the humor in an older book holds up, regardless of when you're reading it.