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Are these books kids want to read, or books they should read? Mary Beaty was quick to admit that her picks were not titles that children would actually peruse of their own free will: "That way lies Gordon Korman, Robert Munsch, and the Hardy Boys, which are the only quasi-Canadian books I can name that kids read voluntarily without adult mentors." Sheila Egoff as well eschewed popularity and simply "went for books that were truly influential." David Jenkinson felt that the "best children's literature should appeal to all ages ... not just the juvenile range for which they were published; adults should also be able to read them with enjoyment." Many of the panelists, like ken Setterington, also commented that "the best books are the ones that are remembered one's whole life." interestingly, given the relative youth of the Canadian children's lit scene, none of the panelists grew up on the titles they chose. With the exception of Anne of Green Gables, all their picks would have been read as adults. Roch Carrier's The Hockey Sweater made many panelists' lists, yet Mary Beaty insists that she and her staff at Kingston Public Library "have never been able to read this to a kids' audience with success"; she claims it is really an adult memoir, which relies more on nostalgia than on a child's true sensibility. While some panelists saw a book's commercial success as a sign of lasting merit, others, like David Jenkinson, professed difficulty in selecting books that had become blockbuster franchises, like Franklin in the Dark. Jenkinson was alone in putting the title on his list, seeing it as a benign addition to "the children's store of animal friends like Babar and Carious George." Mary Beaty proudly included the title on her blacklist, saying it was "sentimental and patronizing." Again, while most panelists saw fit to venerate Dennis Lee's Alligator Pie, that rogue thinker Mary Beaty insisted that Lee was merely slumming when he wrote the children's poems, hoping to "revive a reputation by plagiarizing Lear and Milne., Source type: Electronic(1), http://rlproxy.upei.ca/login?url=http://search.proquest.com/?url=http://search.proquest.com/docview/235581473?accountid=14670