Do We Sell Our Teens Short?

I was contacted by Queensborough Community College to be a partner/support organization on their application for The Big Read, a program of the National Endowment for the Arts. We've done Big Read programs before and we did it when I worked at BPL, so I was really excited to be part of QCC's project.

Then I read the text they had selected: The Shawl by Cynthia Ozick.

The Big Read is geared at middle and high school students with an aim "to broaden audience outreach and deepen participation, especially reaching lapsed and/or reluctant readers" so when I read Ozick's haunting literary novella about a Holocaust survivor, I will freely admit to thinking "This will NEVER work with our teens!"

I understand why QCC selected this text; they have a renowned Holocaust Archives and Resource Center they are planning to use to support the program, but I just got stuck on how hard a sell this book is going to be to reluctant readers.

But then I started thinking about my own prejudices and assumptions about what teens can handle. This came up a little bit in the In-Service on Tuesday, too. Early next week, I'm participating in a two-day training with People and Stories/Gente y Cuentos a reading and discussion program that introduces literary short stories to underserved adults and teens. The whole foundation of their amazing work is that even people without much formal education can interact with high quality literature in a way that incorporates their lived experiences as a valid means for understand the text.

So I've been reading Paulo Freire again and thinking about popular education and realized that I have been too willing to accept that our teens "can't handle" complex, moving works of literature in this "Jersey Shore" day and age. And maybe some of them can't, or won't, but that's no reason not to see what they CAN handle. And so I am preparing for the literary revolution!

Cash in the Coffee Can: $236.00

Part of The Post I've Been Struggling With

A couple of weeks ago, I walked through the Central YA room on my way out through the staff room at the end of the day and was struck by something so unusual I had to ask around later on to see if I had seen what I thought I had seen. There were teens, teen girls in particular, browsing the fiction stacks, talking about books and seeking reader's advisory from the librarians.

This doesn't seem like something that should have drawn my attention, right? After all, isn't this at least part of what a library should be? But until I walked through that day, I hadn't realized that I never saw teens browsing for books in that space before.

What changed? There are no computers in the YA room right now because of the construction, no tables either. And I had to ask myself if the teens who were now using the room, who clearly were taking ownership of the space, its collection and its staff, had been limited in their prior usage by the noise and crowds that had previously existed around the tables and computers. (BTW, when I asked the staff if they had noticed the same changes in usage, they said yes, that they had been remarking on it amongst themselves since the construction walls went up.)

But here's the thing, and the place where I keep getting stuck: is there a way for the teens that need the library as a space to use the computers and hang with friends to coexist with the teens that need the library as a space to find books, be creative and do homework? Of course, this assumes that these are two distinct groups ("readers" and "non-readers," perhaps) with divergent needs, which may not be the case.

Can libraries do both of the things I think we MUST do at the same time and well: connect people to the social and political resources they need AND connect people to the cultural and creative resources they need?

Cash in the Coffee Can: $222.00

The Post that Wasn't

I've been working on this post on and off for 2 days because I can't quite figure out what I want to say even though I kind of know what I want to say. I've given myself a headache, actually, which tells me that I need to throw in the towel. So here is what I will say:

For anyone who thinks we don't need libraries, I recommend the brilliant, if unsubtle, Mike Judge satire Idiocracy. Actually, I recommend it to everyone (with the understanding that the people who don't think we need libraries probably won't get the point).

To everyone else, I will add that I watched this movie the first time in 2007 after it was recommended by a library director speaking at the Urban Libraries Council Executive Leadership Institute. I watched it again this past November and was alarmed by how much closer we've come to the future world Judge depicts in just three short years.

Great movie making? Maybe not (although it is pretty funny). Terrifying prediction of our likely future? Sadly, yes.

Cash in the Coffee Can: $208

Awards and Booklists and Teens (oh my!)

I became a YA librarian for the books. As a children's librarian, I had started working more and more with tweens so I was reading a lot of middle-grade fiction (what we called "young teen") for work and a lot of YA fiction for fun. My excitement over the fiction is what prompted me to make the switch to YA services when I applied to NYC libraries and the rest is history. Except that these days, I have to admit, my interests are less and less about the books. Which I am okay with most of the time, although I do feel guilty for not reading as much or as widely as I could.

But yesterday I participated in the Queens Library Mock Newbery meeting and I am now 100% committed to having a Mock Printz Award for books published in 2011.

I had never participated in a mock award meeting before (shocking, I know) so it was interesting to learn about the process and really exciting and inspiring to sit in a room with other professionals who are passionate about literature for young people and actually TALK ABOUT BOOKS! It was so much fun, especially to hear the wide range of opinions on each of the books.

But here's the thing--the ALA awards and lists are for us and other educators. I have never once had a kid or teen run in on a Monday afternoon in January and ask for the winning books, although I've had plenty of peers do so. That does not necessarily negate the value of awards (and to a certain extent any list of recommended reading we as professionals and adults prepare for teens and kids) but it should be a reminder that many of these books will never fly off our shelves.

On still the other hand, that does not mean that participating in a mock awards process is an exercise in futility. It is something nearly all large libraries and systems do because (I think) it is a way to remind us as professionals of our own expertise and to empower the vast majority of us who will never be on a "real" ALA selection committee. In looking at the lists of mock awards winners NYPL, BPL and we have chosen over the last few years, there are often stark differences between them and the "real" winners, which often reflect our unique point-of-view as librarians working with youth in an extremely diverse urban environment. This is useful! We should know what our peers consider the best of the best but we should also be critical and think of what is the best of the best in our corner of the library world. And if nothing else, it's a way for us to access quality books we might not have otherwise read which we can then bring to those teens who will appreciate them.

Cash in the Coffee Can: $194.00