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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]There have been a couple recent and we'll publicized biographies of Laura Ingalls Wilder depicting her as an awful person as well as a politically active racist, and showing that almost nothing in the Little House series was true. I suspect that had some influence on the decision, even if they aren't saying it. "Author depicts lived experience in a way we now dislike" is different from "Manipulative, racist crank wrote fiction that is racist." The current view is the latter. [/quote]

Yeah, the books are treated like nonfiction, but she *heavily* altered the facts, leaving out and changing things that didn't fit her idealized version of her family, especially her father.  [/quote]

Most people, unless they are very bitter and heavily damaged emotionally, tend to forget or soften negative feelings for loved ones and mostly only remember the good things.

That her portrayal of Pa was so warm an positive given the time she wrote her books (critical blaming of parents was not a thing until recently) and the age she was when she wrote the series (nearly a half century past her youth) is completely to be expected and should not be shocking to anyone, especially since this is a children's book series.[/quote]

It's not shocking, but it's worth remembering that these books are not pure non-fiction.  A lot of the defense of them is that they are just reporting what actually happened to her, but that's not quite true.

I don't see removing her name from the award as that big of a deal.  The ALA isn't going to advocate for banning any books, FFS.  They specifically stated that they hope people keep reading her books, and discussing them, and thinking about them critically.  They just don't want her name on the award anymore.  [/quote]

That was a cop out by ALA.[/quote]

Nonsense.  The American Library Association is never going to advocate for banning books, or removing them from libraries, or discouraging people from reading them.  That would be totally contrary to their basic identity.  You can recognize that a book is meaningful to many people, and has positive qualities and a place on the shelf, and also not want to use the author's name on a major award because some aspects of her work are not consistent with your values and mission.    [/quote]

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