Have you ever noticed that when former librarians or teacher-librarians turn to writing, they produce amazing books? Here are just a few examples that librarian Shannon Ozirny and I came up with last week:

Sarah Ellis
Glen Huser
Kit Pearson
Norma Charles
Lois Peterson

See what I mean? Instant writing geniuses.

I have two theories on why this is:

1. Having worked in the vicinity of so many children’s books, they’ve absorbed the requirements of great writing through osmosis;

or,

2. Have read so many wonderful books, librarians become harsh self-editors, and — though secretly writing mountains of materials — they refuse to release manuscripts into the world until they are absolutely perfect.

What do you think? A bit of both? And should we all sign up for library science courses, asap?