| OCR Text |
Show The following are some of the criteria which guided the selection process (not necessarily mentioned in order of importance): 1. The entry should exhibit literary style appropriate to both its intended primary audience and the nature of its subject-matter. It is not so much the subject-matter under consideration as it is the way in which the writer handles the subject-matter that makes it appropriate. 2. The work, on its own merits, should appeal to the interests of a more than limited percentage of the audience to whom it is directed. This is not to be construed to imply that the entree must be widely popular. 3. The manuscript should be worthy of the reader's precious investment of time and contemplation. It should be undergirded by a value and moral structure worthy of the pluralistic society that is now America, and the inherent dignity of all mankind. This does not mean blatant didactecism nor deadining seriousness. 4. The language of the story should be employed to help delineate individual characters and situations and not as a means to classify particular religious, racial, social, or ethnics groups. It is recognized that characters establish their merits, or lack of same, by how they act rather than what they say. Probably, something dreadfully important has been omitted, but I can't now think what. If these criteria seem, at times, to reflect my strong moral bias, so be it. I view, with some alarm, some of the books now being published for young people. I just don't believe that any art form should be employed to degrade mankind. |
