I focused on the Greenfield Public Library for my librarian interview, but most of my teens are from the Northampton/Florence area. According to the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners, the Greenfield Public Library serves a population of 17, 834 people. They are open six days a week (closed on Sundays) with late hours Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday staying open until 8pm. They have just added a section especially for teens and offer IM via four different search engines such as Yahoo! and MSN as a way to contact a librarian. The page on their web site for teens is a little bland, but there is some good information there if a teen goes there, including a list of websites that a teen would be interested in from Myspace.com to StudyTips.org. They also have an anime club that meets once a month for two hours where teens can watch the latest anime films and talk with other teens interested in some of the same things they are. There is a graphic novel display for the kids who are interested in graphic novels and manga to check out the library’s collection. The list of graphic novels and manga in their collection is also on the teen page of the web site.
I talked with my friend Jess, the Information Services librarian at Greenfield Public Library. After taking several classes with Jess and getting to know her personally, I know how much she works with teens and how much she respects them. Jess and I sat down at Panera before taking in the movie Step Up 2 (my version of a thank you note) to talk about her dealings with teens and how she supports their reading interest. Jess typically works the reference desk during the week, but it doesn’t mean that she doesn’t work with teens. She says that she tries to get out from behind the desk as often as she can to ask a teen if the need help looking for a book or other materials that they be looking for before they approach her at the reference desk. She says that many teens come into the library and then sit a desk with nothing to do or read. Jess takes this opportunity to deliver books like The Guinness World Book of Records, Ripley’s Believe It or Not or back issues of Rolling Stone to their tables just to thumb through while they are sitting there. She says that most teens will start looking through what she has given them and sometimes they will take them out of the library. Either way, she feels like it is a way to open communication between her and teens in the library without being too intrusive.
Jess had to write this paper last semester and interviewed a librarian who worked in school as well as some of the students who went to that library. The librarian was reluctant to even greet teens as they entered the library. When Jess talked to the teens about their experience with the librarian, they said that it was hard to talk to her and noted that she never greeted them. This had a huge impact on Jess and she says that she makes a conscious effort to say hello to every teen that walks in the library. She feels that this has opened the door for conversations she has with teens and made them feel more comfortable to go up and approach her with reference or other book questions. She wants teens to feel like they can talk to her and to feel like the library is a good place for them to come.
When Jess does have a reference question from a teen, she brings them around the desk so they can see what she is doing while searching. She makes them an active participant in their reference question and talks with them about their needs. She also doesn’t always use the “traditional” sources when helping teens find books that they may be interested in. She has used tools like Library Thing and other library’s teen book lists to find resources for teens looking for a particular subject that Jess may or may not know a lot about.
I think the one thing that Jess struggles with is getting teens into the library and letting them know what the Greenfield Public library has to offer. She says that they have movie days in the summer to get more teens into the library, but the turn out has mostly been adults. She feels that the library is “still under utilized by teens.” She also worries that teens won’t be able to find what they are looking and won’t ask. She admits that it is nice that the teen section is close to DVD section. But since they have changed the location of the teen section and the graphic novels, teens can sometimes not find what they are looking for.
There are also learning challenges in Greenfield and the literacy skills are low. She feels that reading doesn’t have to mean reading “with a capital R.” She thinks that students may not think of themselves as readers because they don’t like or don’t read texts that the school provides. She thinks of reading as any form of text from cell phone text messages to works of literature.
Interviewing Jess felt a little bit like cheating. I know her and I know that Jess is going to do everything she can to make the library a welcoming place for teens to come and just be. She takes working with people very seriously. She wants to help and be a person that people can turn to; that is the reason she became a librarian and why she is going to school. Jess’s perception of teens and their reading habits don’t differ from what I learned from the teens I interviewed. She wants to understand them and help them but is always aware that she is not one of them and doesn’t try to pretend she is. She is open about not knowing about something and wants them to learn together. She seems to know just the right amount of communication to make them feel welcome and comfortable with her without being over the top and appearing insincere. She wouldn’t impose her views on teens about what they should be reading. I think she is very aware and will be helpful to any teen that she works with in the library.
I interviewed five teens about their reading habits, likes, dislikes and what they thought reading was. It was interesting because four out of my five teens have parents who work with me at the magazine. These are kids who live with parents who think reading is really important and have created an environment where kids are encouraged to read. I interviewed three teens in person and the other two wanted to be interviewed via email. The other challenge is I have known three of the teens since they were young kids in grade school and I’m friends with their parents. The one thing that bonded us was that this was my homework assignment and they seemed to think of homework as something that only young people their age have.
I was surprised by how each child defined what reading was to them for this assignment. They all admitted that they read all the time whether or not it is a sign or a book or an email or text message, but some of them didn’t think that would be something I would want them to note on their reading logs. They thought because it was a homework assignment that they should try to stick to the traditional forms of reading. One of my teens asked after he had filled out his log, had I wanted him to note “all the song titles he had read on his iPod when listening to music.” Another teen said “she knew I had meant anything but this was for school so she took it seriously and wrote down books and stuff.” There was only one teen, and I think it was out of desperation because she had been skiing most of the day she filled out, who asked could she include all the signs she had seen while skiing and could she make it an “all day thing” because it was what she was doing all day. She didn’t want her log to look “too empty.”
When I asked the teens what had surprised them about their reading logs, I got answers ranging from “Nothing really surprised me about my reading habits, because I know I spend a lot of time of Facebook” to “Yes. I was at school all day. I thought I would have read more.” The teens I talked to were more concerned with whether or not I was surprised by their reading logs. I think they may have looked at this like a homework assignment for them and wanted to know if I thought they did a good job. One teen was a little surprised that I “accepted” Myspace.com and music magazines as reading. He said he wrote them down because he didn’t read any books and didn’t want his sheet to be blank and he didn’t want to “cheat” on my homework. Even though I had explained the reading log to all of them, it seemed that they couldn’t let go of the fact that it was homework for me and they didn’t want to let me down. I ended feeling bad that they felt so much pressure to do a good job for me. I would probably try to figure out a way to make this seem important that they complete it without letting on that it was a school assignment for me if I were to do this again.
They all seemed to like reading different things. One girl really enjoyed fantasy books, while her sister said that she really only read mysteries. One boy was obsessed with music, especially Bob Marley, so he spent most of his time reading music magazines and talking with his friends on Myspace about Bob Marley. Another teen did the majority of his reading via the web on his reading log, but when I asked him what he liked to read he gave me my favorite answer of all the teens I interviewed, “Mainly fantasy, Sci-Fi, realistic fiction, and French Classics involving a singer, a viscount, a Persian, and a hideous dude who lives in the catacombs of the Paris Opera House.” And finally, I had one teen that liked reading anything. She said that it didn’t matter as long as she could read it. Knowing my teens a little, I thought more of them would read graphic novels or comics, but there was only one who read a comic during the time of the log.
I tried to make sure that I choose different types of books from the YALSA lists. I think the easiest way to write this is to give the book name and title, the link to the Amazon page and then give some of their comments below. I will say that none of my teens had read any of the books on either list. This was all new to them.
YALSA Best Books for Young Adults
The Arrival
http://www.amazon.com/Arrival-Shaun-Tan/dp/0439895294
A few of them thought that this was interesting (a very popular word for all the teens when describing these works), but only two said they would read it. Three of them said that they don’t really read comics. But they were all sitting together and often times seemed to share opinions about the books, only varying slightly in their assessments. One teen said that she thought “it was really neat how they gave the story from the point of view of the immigrants with the made up letters.” She had never really thought about what it would be like not to know the language. And another teen said, “Sure, the sense of not fully understanding sounds cool.”
Before I Die
http://www.amazon.com/Before-I-Die-Jenny-Downham/dp/0385751559/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1204598182&sr=1-1
One of female teens were shocked that this book was about a girl who wanted to have sex before she died. I also felt a little worried when I gave this book to look at because I work with their parents and know some of their views on talking about sex when their children are so young. The teen that was a little shook up by the sex part of it and didn’t think she would want to read it because she couldn’t relate. While another one of my teenage girls didn’t notice or didn’t feel the need to acknowledge the sex part of the book, or didn’t notice it all, responded, “Oh my gosh. It looks so sad and like sentimental and a lot about relationships and the people in your life, I would cry but I love tear chokers like this.” One teen boy had an interesting response, “Sounds like a book that can get you really attached to the character, only to watch it all go up in flames, so it would depend on whether or not I’m in the mood for a tragedy.” It was not a response that I expected from a teenage male. While the other one teen boy thought the cover was “too girly and why would I want to read a book like that anyway. I’m not a sick girl and I don’t know any.”
Samurai Shortstop
http://www.amazon.com/Samurai-Shortstop-Alan-M-Gratz/dp/0142410993/ref=pd_bbs_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1204598299&sr=1-1
One of the teens loved this cover and was very excited to read this book. He said, “I would totally read this. I’m so into baseball and the whole samurai warrior thing is so sweet. It looks interesting.” One of the girls thought it looked “interesting” and she liked the “real life” part of it, but she didn’t think that she would read it. One of the other teens said that she would read this despite not liking baseball. And one teenage girl had some stronger feelings about it, “this looks a bit boring. I’m not really a baseball type and in fact I want to fall asleep whenever someone starts talking about it so not a good book for me, although the whole suicide ritual thing looks intense.”
American Born Chinese
http://www.amazon.com/American-Born-Chinese-Gene-Luen/dp/1596433736/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1204598376&sr=1-1
I was very interested to see how the teens would react to this book because it was on this list and had won the Printz award as well. One teen male said, “Seeing as I love everything about the orient, I would read this.” This was also his response to Samurai Shortstop. One teen girl said that she would read this despite not liking graphic novels. Another female teen said that she wouldn’t read it. She said that she has a hard time reading graphic novels because she gets too distracted by the pictures. She “likes books that are just text.” My third teenage girl said she was going to “have to go and get this.” It looked really interesting to her. One of the teenage males didn’t really feel strongly one way or another about this book. “I’m not sure about this book. It’s about a teenager guy, which I can relate to but I’m also not Chinese, so I wouldn’t understand this part.”
Twilight
http://www.amazon.com/Twilight-Saga-Book-1/dp/0316015849/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1204598418&sr=1-1
At least one of my teens had heard about this book and planned on reading it. One of my interviews that was via email said, “I’m not even going to follow the link for this one. I’ve actually been meaning to read the entire series (Twilight, New Moon, and Eclipse) because they’re all extremely popular among my friends.” I had one female teen who was very into Fantasy books, so I though she would really be into this book, but she said “I’m not a very big fan of the supernatural and vampire things, so I wouldn’t like this book but the cover is so misleading.” It seemed like the teens were either really excited to read it or didn’t want to read it all. This book evoked the strongest opinions that the teens had about any of the books that were on the list.
YALSA Quick Picks for Young Adults List
Class Pictures
http://www.amazon.com/Dawoud-Bey-Pictures-Jock-Reynolds/dp/1597110434
I expected the teens to really like this book, especially the males I interviewed. One of them did, he said, “It looks good. I think it shows a lot of individuality and I think that is interesting.” The other male surprised me and reminded me that while the common thought is most teen boys are more interested in non-fiction, not all of them are. He said, “Probably not, as I’m not too into nonfiction.” The teen girls were all interested in the book and thought it “looked really cool.” There was one girl that had a really interesting comment. “ I like the photographs a lot. I think that they can sometimes tell more than words. It shows the diversity of high school students and challenges teenage stereotypes.”
Quaking
http://www.amazon.com/Quaking-Kathryn-Erskine/dp/0399247742/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1204583292&sr=1-1
This was another book that all of teens had a really positive response to which really surprised me. It wouldn’t have been a book I would have thought they would all like. They all thought it looked like something they would read. One teen girl said, “ It sounds interesting. You always get the perspective from the people who are popular but you never get the perspective of people who are challenged.” Another teen girl was hoping that she could learn something from the book, “ I’m interested in her facing challenges with bullies. I want to read it because I want to find out how she does that.” I was surprised that both the boys would read this especially because the cover looked more geared towards girls than boys. One boy said, “Sure, Sounds like a good, suspenseful political thriller.” The other teen boy was less enthusiastic but still interested in reading it. “ It is about a girl and I’m always cautious about girls because they seem different and I can’t relate to girls. It seems good thought because she is facing challenges. I like conflict in a book.”
Emily the Strange: The Lost Issue
http://www.amazon.com/Emily-Strange-Lost-Issue/dp/1593074298/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1204583623&sr=1-1
This is a book that I thought all of teens would like. Again, I was totally wrong. Only one of the teens thought this book looked like something she would read. She said, “ It looks strange (and then giggled) but I would still give it a try. I think that it might be interesting.” Other teens were less receptive. One teen said, “ a book about a weird girl and her weird friends. I can’t relate to it.” And another teen said, “It looks strange and cynical. It’s about weirdos and I’m just not a weirdo. It also looks a little creepy.” It seemed like the teens didn’t want to be seen as “weirdos” and they thought they would be if they said they wanted to read the book. One teen who was more diplomatic in his response still seemed a little turned off, “Possibly (it would depend on what mood I’m in), because it might be a little /too/ strange”
The Sleeper Conspiracy (2 books)
Sleeper Code
http://www.amazon.com/Sleeper-Code-Tom-Sniegoski/dp/1595140522/ref=pd_bbs_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1204583786&sr=1-1
Sleeper Agenda
http://www.amazon.com/Sleeper-Agenda-Conspiracy-Part/dp/1595140530/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_b
Two of my teens felt tricked by the covers and said they would have never picked up the books because of it. They thought the books were going to be more about gadgets and very boy-oriented. They were surprised when the read the descriptions and they appealed to them. One of them was pulled in because they were thrillers and sounded like they would be filled with action. “They sound like a movies more than a books.” One of the male teenagers was interested in reading them but thought, “the covers looked too much like Spy Kids.” The other male teenager sounded like he thought they would be great books for him. “Let’s see, Suspense + mystery x life being a lie=good book” My teenage girl that seemed to like almost everything I presented her with thought they sounded “ really cool and interesting.” She said she would definitely read these books.
Full Metal Alchemist: Volume 1
http://www.amazon.com/Fullmetal-Alchemist-1-Hiromu-Arakawa/dp/1591169208/ref=pd_bbs_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1204584104&sr=1-2
This was another book I thought everyone would like or at least be interested in, especially because of its television presence. Only one teen said that she would read this. She said, “I really like the show and I’m excited to find out that there was a graphic novel version. I feel like I should have known.” All of the other teens did not like this choice. One teen that interviewed via email went so far as to use caps and text symbols to really let me know he did not want to read this book. “No, because I _/*HATE*/_ Manga.” The other teen male thought, “It looked like it was for nine year olds.”
I learned a great deal from this assignment. I was very careful about the books I picked for my teens. I tried to pick books that I thought they would like and be interested in. I knew that not everyone would like every book, but I was surprised at how often I was completely off the mark with my choices. And I was very surprised by how many of them did not like graphic novels. I thought they would be a big hit with most of them. I know now that in order to recommend books to teens or anyone for that matter, I really need to get a better understanding of what they like to read and what they don’t like to read more than general statements like “I like fantasy novels.”
I also realized that most teens are not anti-reading, they are just interested in what they are interested in. It was amazing to me that they were really receptive to looking at all of different book choices I had selected and that they would give most of them a try. I think that is the most important part of encouraging teens to read is to give them choices. Let the decision be theirs. They were all surprised that I said, “ You don’t have to like this just because I picked it out.” After I said that to all of them whether face-to-face or electronically, I felt that initial responses changed a bit. They took a little more pleasure in letting me know what they thought of a book even if it was negative. Actually, I think they may have had more fun giving the negative feedback than reasons why they would read a book.
Overall, it was a fun experience. I enjoyed talking to them about books and the things that spun off of our books talks. They seemed to get more comfortable the more we talked which made me more comfortable. There was a part of me that felt bad about having them take time out their busy schedules to help me with this assignment. It made it hard for me to start the conversations with them about the books and their reading habits. I felt like I was interrogating them about things that were too close to school-related topics and that I may inadvertently turn them off to looking at new books. But by the end, we were all laughing about the books and their comments.
