During my practicum at a high school this semester, I have
had the opportunity to interact with many students. It has been especially helpful, because the
past few months have been filled with reading Good Night Moon (or similar activities) with my young daughter. Being a new mom has made it difficult to keep
up with what is new in pop culture or YA literature.
This week I had the opportunity to work with a student who
genuinely wanted help finding a book. He
was interested in realistic fiction and teen issues. I realized while I was helping him, how
unprepared I am to help boys with readers advisory. Obviously, many books appeal to both males
and females, but a majority of the realistic fiction books I have read are more
female centric. I have read at least one
book by many of the authors that are recommended for YA males, but the list is
small.
In addition, I realized that realistic fiction that deals
with teen issues (drugs, pregnancy, suicide, gangs, etc) is not a strong area
for me. To be honest, I do not care for
this genre because it can be depressing.
If I am going to do readers advisory, I need to get over my own
preferences and widen the types of books I read.
Reader’s advisory is not all about reading books in order to
make recommendations. I know I can cheat
and read reviews, summaries, and get recommendations from others. Yet, it is important for me to have a
well-rounded reading list for myself. For
fun, I did a couple searches for readers advisory resources. This ALA blog had a couple really helpful
tips:
Most of the suggestions I am already doing, such as keeping
a journal of what I read. Instead of a
paper journal, I keep track of what I have read on Shelfari, GoodReads and
LibraryThing.
One of my favorite suggestions on the blog was “admit your
likes and dislikes when asked – be honest with your teens!” I sometimes forget
that it is okay to admit what I personally like or do not like.
Great post. It is really interesting to step back and self-examine in this way. I like your point that its OK to just not like some things personally, while still trying to find the relevance for the particular student/audience you are working with. It sounds like you are not only being very self-reflective here, but also performing many of the tips to continue to develop your readers advisory skills.
ReplyDeleteIt is interesting, too, that you find the toughest fiction to connect to to be male-driven. Once again it seems the boys are having a tough time connecting to source material. I think its important to self-reflect on this as a library and ask if we are meeting the reading needs of groups (in this case boys) that are engaged with material that we don't personally like. I wish all libraries and librarians had the kind of thoughtful self-reflection that you have here. Its good to be thinking about these things. Thanks!
When looking at the list of "don'ts", I realized that I do the "I loved that when I was a teen..." thing. I think you have to be careful with that one. If you're young, and have a good rapport with the teen (and know them personally), it might be okay to say that. That said, I know my boss, who is 63, might turn readers off with that statement. I think the important thing is thinking whether or not the material is dated before you make that statement.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if wording it as "I love this series..." instead of mentioning that you read it as a teen would help. I think kids, especially teens who like you, like to feel like they can come talk to you about a book...they just don't want to feel like they're reading an old lady's book list!
I have a teen who stops in the library and we always talk about what we're reading-- she likes to find out what I've read lately because we have a shared love of dystopian YA fiction. Sharing, and being honest, can be great-- just don't make them feel like they're taking a step back in time when they read a book. (This dovetails with the need to make sure that even your literature that was published a little earlier looks new-- keeping books with worn covers or dated photos on the front just turns kids off!)
Great post!