During the past 30 years, the author has worked with children and young adults from ages 3 to 18 (not to mention teachers, families, administrators, lecturers, and visiting authors), and she has read a lot of books. Because there are so many kids' books being published these days, she is not expecting total perfection. Still, there are many things…

One of a series dealing with current issues affecting language arts instruction, this paper brings into focus some of the issues surrounding textbooks in the schools so that informed decisions can be made regarding textbook selection and use. The major portion of the paper explores professional opinions regarding textbooks, noting the following:…

Examines obvious and covert efforts of censorship on young adult novels and the publishers' reluctance to provide more realism. Concludes by urging teachers to counteract those forces through diligent consumer education. (HOD)

Presents a set of "neutral" language guidelines as a way of pointing out the problems of using language guidelines in the first place. (JL)

This issue of Literacy Discussion explains the joint Arab strategy for illiteracy eradication and reviews Iraq's particular situation. The first of six articles traces literacy development in the Arab World leading up to the adoption of the Arab Literacy strategy at the 1976 Third Alexandria Conference in Baghdad, Iraq. It also presents…