It's What I DO

I found this quote on Shelf Awareness - love that newsletter - and they found it on the blog Brain Pickings, as you will see. (And Brain Pickings got it from a book of Ursula Nordstrom's letters that I now MUST read.)  This is a great answer to all those people who wonder - out loud - why I "still" read children's books.  As my hero might have said, it's what I do.

"I was taken out to luncheon and offered, with great ceremony, the opportunity to be an editor in the adult department. The implication, of course, was that since I had learned to publish books for children with considerable success perhaps I was now ready to move along (or up) to the adult field. I almost pushed the luncheon table into the lap of the pompous gentleman opposite me and then explained kindly that publishing children's books was what I did, that I couldn't possibly be interested in books for dead dull finished adults, and thank you very much but I had to get back to my desk to publish some more good books for bad children."

--Ursula Nordstrom, who was head of Harper's department of books for boys and girls from 1940 to 1973 (from the book Dear Genius: The Letters of Ursula Nordstrom, which was showcased by the Brain Pickings blog).