Chapter One Hundred Twenty-One: The Fair Garden and the Swarm of Beasts

So the full title of this (non-fiction) book is The Fair Garden and the Swarm of Beasts: The Library and the Young Adult.  First published in 1969, it is written by Margaret A. Edwards, one of the earliest well-known pioneers of library services to teenagers and a long-time young adult services librarian in Baltimore's pubic library system.  While many of her attitudes about teenagers are dated--especially regarding what teenage boys like to read as compared to teenage girls--I can really respect most of her ideas, ideas that were largely ahead of her time, namely, her respect for teenagers as people, her belief in the importance of reading for fun (and in the importance of having YA literature available for teens to read), her outreach efforts in schools and in communities, and her insistence that teens deserve library services and materials dedicated to them.  This was not the most thrilling book to read, but as someone who's really interested in public library services to teens, it did provide an interesting historical background to teen services in public libraries.  But if you're not interested in that, I wouldn't suggest you read this book.