One School, Many Books

My students have all headed off for Spring Break--a welcome break for all involved! I'm relieved to be on break (goal for break: get my sleep back in functioning condition), but also excited about what will be happening when students come back from break.

We started a program I'm calling "One School, Many Books" this year. I'd long been interested in doing a One School One Book program, but had no idea what book I would choose for such a program. As a result of working in a very small school with students with very diverse reading interests, all of my top ten checkouts have checkout totals in the single digits. What book could I possibly choose? Especially since much of my population is comprised of VERY reluctant readers. If the book doesn't appeal to them, there's no way they're going to even give it a shot.

But then I started thinking about what could motivate students to read a book over Spring Break. And I realized, as with so many other things, it's about making connections between people. A student who might not be interested in reading a book (or only have a passing interest in reading a book) might be more interested if reading that book was tied to a book club being hosted by one of their favorite teachers.

We have an amazing faculty here, and several of them stepped up right away to host book clubs. Each of them have different interests, and connect with different kids, and so picked out very different books. Which I love. We've got groups reading The Hunger Games, The Art of Racing in the Rain, Lola and the Boy Next Door, Gentlemen and Trapped.

Once I announced the book clubs, students would come in looking for "the book that Ms. _______ is reading." Didn't matter the book, they wanted to spend time with the teacher. They knew the teacher, liked the teacher, assumed

We're building on relationships that already exist in order to foster a love of reading. And it's really cool to watch it happening.

As part of this, we're hosting a visit from Michael Northrop (author of Gentlemen and Trapped) in April. Handing out those books to kids has been particularly cool. "This is mine to keep? Do you think he'll sign it for me? Awesome!"

In honor of that visit--and in the interest of generating more interest in those books, I made a couple book trailers.





I love making book trailers, as it pushes me to think in ways I don't usually think. "Thinking in pictures" is generally a weakness for me, but many of my students connect really well with images, so it's a skill I work on a lot--and making book trailers is a really fun way to develop that skill set. I use flickrCCBlueMountains for images, and have recently added PhotoPin to my "go to" sites for CC images. I use Jamendo for music, and I don't know what I'd do without it.

Overall we have about 30 (out of 180) kids involved in the book clubs in some way. I'm looking forward to the book club discussions that will be happening after break!

A whole new card catalog

My library was automated about four years ago; in fact, I spent my first week on the job up to eyes in uncataloged reference books, deciding what to keep and what (like the encyclopedia set from 1981) was not worth keeping.

In moving the library collection out of temporary storage and into the newly renovated space, the old card catalog got left behind. I would see it every once in a while, and kept thinking I should grab it, but it wasn't until last year when they were doing some other renovations that I finally stuck a note on it that said "Please move to library."

I didn't know what, exactly, I wanted to do with it, but I knew I wanted to do something. I mean, just look at it--clearly, in addition to being full of old catalog cards, it is also full of possibility.

My first plan was to turn the catalog into storage for frequently-requested supplies--markers, tape, rulers, pens. . . you get the idea.



Around the same time, however, I began playing with some ideas around providing readers' advisory--namely, coming up with creative ways to help students who came in looking for books and requesting mysteries, or science fiction, or "a book about someone with a messed up life."

The first thing I did was create some lists in the catalog in order to help me have an easy reference for those lists, but I wanted to find a new way to get those lists to students (outside of searching the catalog).

And thus an overly-ambitious project was born.

I decided to use the top row of drawers for catalog cards, but rather than traditional catalog cards these cards would feature a select list of books, and be designed as a readers' advisory tool.

I took my book lists, focusing on high interest fiction and non-fiction, and came up with genre names that were reflective of the types of books my students regularly asked for. Then I created a card for each book, using the cover image and brief blurb.



There will still some old dividers in the catalog, so I made some new labels for them.


And labeled the drawers.




















This project was A LOT of work and A LOT of fun. It was a great way to both refresh my memory and become more knowledgeable about my collection. I can't wait to share it with students--my goal is to have them creating cards and contributing to our readers' advisory catalog.

On display

I 0nce turned down a job offer to teach 4th grade because--in addition to being completely, totally and woefully unqualified to teach 4th grade in any way, shape, or form--I felt like my bulletin board creation skills were not good enough to work in an elementary school. I preferred high school, where I could tack up a few posters and call it a day; and during my three years teaching high school I was a teacher on a cart, so I never even had my own room with bulletin boards to worry about (which, really, is the only perk of being a teacher on a cart).

That changed, however, when I went back for my MLIS. One of my friends from grad school (well, he's still a friend, but I met him in grad school) used to joke that I was getting a degree in arts and crafts every time I had to create some sort of display for class. (He also used to sneak up behind me while I was working in the computer lab and try to give me a hear attack. With friends like these. . .).

I really enjoyed those assignments where I had to create a display; I'm pretty good at presenting information in text, but not so good at presenting information in pictures, and it was good to develop those skills. Students are a lot more likely to respond to something that's visually appealing; turns out I was more than a little off-base in my assumption that by avoiding elementary school I was avoiding the need to create bulletin boards.

Now, despite (or more likely because of) not having a conventional display space, I really like creating new book displays. I don't get to rotate displays as often as I'd like (though, thanks to a friend and colleague wh0's working with me in the library this year, it's a lot easier), but I did want to show off a couple I've done this year.

First up, my Banned Books Week display:

I was pretty proud of the number of frequently challenged books I already had in my collection; I added glaring omissions to my next order. The signs are lists and charts of frequently challenged books by title and reason for the challenge.

I was considering a Halloween display, but I feel a lot of pressure from seasonal displays, given that there is a definite expiration date. I wanted something I could keep up for a while, swapping books out as needed. So I came up with "Get Carried Away by a Book":


And then I decided to do a small Halloween display anyway, as I had a bunch of decorations from a previous display:


On the circulation desk I have my friend Courtney Sheinmel's first book, My So-Called Family, which I finally read and LOVED:


But no matter how many displays I make, or how good I get at it (or even if I ever get a "real" display space), this:

will always be my favorite kind of display.

Swearing at students

The other day (note: I use “the other day” to refer to any day in the previous 3+ years that is not today. This particular “other day” was about three weeks ago) I was booktalking for a 9th grade English class. I had several booktalks that I’d written, and a handful of books from which I’d selected passages to read; one of those books was K.L. Going’s fantastic Fat Kid Rules the World.

I’d read over and over the booktalks and passages in preparation; I’d tweaked my booktalks, selected passages carefully so they started and ended at just the right spots. I’d practiced reading everything several times. And yet, somehow, I didn’t notice in until I was in the middle of reading the passage and saw it lurking on the line below.

Fuck.

Not a “damn” or a “hell.” Not even a “shit.” A full-fledged “fuck,” just sitting there, waiting to be read aloud to a class of 9th graders.

Time slowed down. And as I continued to read the sentence that I was already in the middle of, heading full steam ahead towards that fuck, my internal monologue went into overdrive:

Do I skip it?
Do I replace it with a more innoccuous choice? Frickin’? Flippin’? Eff’n? Doesn’t that just make it more obvious that I’m not saying it?
Who am I to make that choice? This isn’t my book. The word is there. Do I say it? Why would I *not* say it?
What’s the big deal, anyway? It’s just a word.
No, it’s not. I mean, yes, it is “just” a word. But it’s not a word I use with students. It’s a word I actively discourage students from using in front of me. Is it hypocritical if I use it?
Well, it’s not really me using it, it’s the character using it.
That’s a cop-out.
No, it’s not. I selected this book because I love the characters. And Troy says “fuck.” And he uses it for a reason. Who am I decide that he really should have said “frickin’”?
It’s two words away. . . make a decision.
It’s not my role to decide what something “should” be; I can only share what something is.

“. . . I’m a fucking 300-pound teenager. . . “

And then it was done. A couple students giggled nervously, but then we all moved on. And that was the experience in every class. Yes, I read it again. Same passage, same word. Because I’d selected that passage for a reason; to switch passages because of one word (a word that I’ve, *ahem*, used once or twice before) felt. . . wrong. The language--in the entire passage, not just that one word--was true to the characters and true to the story; to not read an entire passage because of one word seemed as ridiculous to me as challenging John Green’s Looking for Alaska over one scene about a blowjob (which is not, when it comes right down to it, *about* a blowjob), or challenging Sherman Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian because of “profanity” and mentions of masturbation.

It’s one passage, one word. And if it fits with the book, fits with the story, fits with the character--authentically and in such a way that when you see it in context you think, “Yes, that makes sense. That feels true”--none of us have any business trying to take it out. Least of all me, even if I am standing in front of a group of 9th graders. *

I’m always bothered a little bit by the argument that swearing/sex/violence etc. are okay in books because “kids hear a lot worse in movies/in the hallways/from their friends.” The arguments seems to be that it’s okay only because it’s “too late” to protect kids from these images and words (it bothers me, too, that the natural extension of this logic leads to people challenging The Hunger Games; if they don’t read/hear/view violence then everything will be just fine). But what if I want to work with students to be more civil AND suggest a book with the word “fuck” in it? Am I allowed to do that?

If students don’t watch those shows/live those lives, is it not okay for them to read these books? Are we only allowed to see our own experiences mirrored in what we read? Or do we read to experience lives that are often completely unlike our own--in ways both good and bad? You can probably figure out my answer on that one.

And so I recommend fantasy and science fiction and horror and realistic fiction where characters live difficult lives and bad things happen and sometimes people swear. And I recommend humorous books and adventure stories, and light-hearted books where the conflict has less than life-or-death stakes. I make recommendations based on what the student is looking to read; not based on whether or not I think the student has existing first-hand knowledge of all the plot points and themes in the book.

And for all the talk of “sex/violence/profanity” sells. . . no one checked out Fat Kid Rules the World. But someday one of them probably will. And I bet they’ll be too wrapped up in the story and the characters to notice one little word.

_________________________________

This was one of the many things that bothered me about The Boxer and the Spy; there’s a scene in which an adult apologizes for using the word “crap” in front of a 15-year-old girl. Really? Crap? I’m all for being more civil with our language and how we talk to each other, but in the context of conspiracies about murdering teenagers to cover up crimes, apologizing for the word crap seemed a little forced. Of course, he did use it in front of a girl, and you know what delicate lavender-lined paper using creatures we are.

For the record, "How's your summer been?" would have been a better way to start that conversation

To paraphrase Charlie Brown, nothing takes the taste out of your veggie burger quite like being told that "every" student thinks the Summer Reading program you spent hours and hours and hours on is a joke.

I don't want to be as bothered by this as I am, 'cause I know how students are, but it just completely deflated me.

This information was given to me by a colleague at a cookout this afternoon--a cookout I was hoping to enjoy, as it would be an opportunity to catch up with some colleagues I hadn't seen all summer. According to her, students think the Summer Reading program is a joke because English teachers "never" follow up on it or collect the essays or anything. Which I know isn't true, but I also know isn't completely false. And, apparently, unless there's a test or paper or something, what's the point of reading a book? I did point out to my colleague that the Summer Reading assessment had changed this year, and students would need to show up with a completed project. That did not seem to matter.

Part of me wants to say, "Fine then. We'll make it super rigorous and give a test and make you write a super long essay. Happy now?" Part of me wants to passive-aggressively "apologize" to these kids for trying to make the Summer Reading program enjoyable. Part of me wants to tell the English department that if they're not going do the follow up on Summer Reading in the fall, then I'm not going to put so much work into developing and promoting it. Part of me feels super depressed at the idea of having spent three years trying to change the Summer Reading program into something that is less about work and more about enjoying reading, and seeing I haven't made a dent. Part of me is even more depressed that there seems to be a significant population of students for whom the idea of "reading for pleasure" is, essentially, meaningless.

It's a lot of parts. But all of them kind of want to cry.

~~~~~
ETA: Just to be 100% clear--I am in no way mad at or frustrated with anyone in the English department, regardless of how they've handled Summer Reading in the past. The whole idea is that it's not assessment intensive. I'm just feeling frustrated and deflated.

I’m not going to go for the completely obvious gardening analogy

I spent the first couple days of this week weeding my fiction collection; initially my plan was to weed fiction and 700s (arts) and 800s (literature) , but the fiction collection took a while—and produced a large number of discards—so I haven’t tackled the other sections yet. I’d like to get to them before the end of the summer, as it would mean that I would have weeded my entire collection in the last two years. From there, I would really like to write some sort of general collection development plan, but I feel like I need to have a better sense of my current collection before I can do that. Also, I have little to no idea about how to actually write a collection development plan, and I’m hoping to find a graduate student in need of a project before I get around to doing it myself. Which is unlikely to happen, but a girl can dream.

In any event, I did weed my fiction collection. When I started I had 1669 books (according to my last collection analysis; it was probably a bit higher than that in reality, as I’d done some purchasing since then). I weeded 612 books, which is about 36% of the collection. Which is, you know, a lot.

There are a lot of librarians who have a hard time weeding; they can’t bear the thought of parting with their books. Not me. I am rather merciless when it comes to weeding. I have very limited shelving, and no room to put in new shelves; it’s either weed or stop purchasing. And now that I’ve removed so many old, yellowing titles, the collection looks so much more inviting, and is far more browsable.

One of the biggest challenges in weeding is not which books to weed (yellowing paperback that crumbles when you touch it? Weed it. Book donated in 1967 and not checked out since? Weed it.), but what to do with the weeded books. Not having an idea of what to do with the books kept me from tackling this project for a long time. I hated the idea of just throwing the books away to become landfill fodder, but I also didn’t know how to go about recycling them. And some of the books would still probably be wanted by somebody, but totally didn’t fit my collection.

And so, I’ve come up with a multi-tiered plan. I’m lucky enough to have a friend at a public library that does a book sale; the top tier books will go to her. My school’s bookstore manager and I team up to give books to a company that will either sell or recycle them; the second-tier books go to them. And for this most recent round of weeding, I’ll be re-purposing about a quarter of what was weeded for dorm and classroom libraries.

Now why, you may reasonably ask, would I take books from the collection, only to put them elsewhere at the school? The year before I started here we won a large grant from YALSA, in which they gave us a ton of books. It completely revitalized our fiction collection; however, we also got multiple copies of the same books (in some cases we got multiple copies of the second or third book in a series; I feel it goes without saying that in most cases I did not have the first book in the series). For a lot of libraries having multiple copies of the same book makes a lot of sense, and there are some books for which I like to have multiple copies; however, that is not, by and large, how my collection is used. And four copies of a 250 page book takes up quite a bit of shelf space.

But these books are still very good and, particularly given the spirit in which they were donated, I would like to keep them. And after reading The Power of Reading by Stephen Krashen last year, I’ve become more and more convinced of the importance of having reading material widely available to students in places beyond the walls of the library. I created dorm libraries last year, and have managed to get enough donations to seriously up the quality of books that will be available next year; these books will serve to improve not only the quality but also the quantity of books available, increasing the odds that students will find something they like. I’m working on some ideas for promoting these “libraries outside the library”, but right now they’re still in the disjointed sentence fragment stage, so I’m going to wait before sharing.

My Second Book Trailer!

I finished my second ever book trailer this morning (for the book by the other author who's coming in April). These are really hard for me, as I don't really think in images; I'm a text kind of girl. But I'm pretty happy with how this one came out.

I'm embedding the YouTube version of this one--did I mention I have a YouTube channel now? I don't know how I feel about that. Right now my two book trailers are the only videos there, but if I keep doing book trailers (which I hope to do) I will probably develop that a bit more.

My first book trailer!

The author's coming here in April--and she loves the book trailer and wants to use it!

I used Animoto, which is one of those things I kept meaning to learn about; then a student came in and showed me exactly how easy it was.