We Need Diverse Books!

Yes, or schools, libraries and our children deserve diverse books.  So what is stopping our libraries and classrooms from reflecting the diverse faces of our children? 

A big part of the problem is how our economy works.  "Popular" books make more money for publishers.  Books that don't sell enough, or whose publishers don't predict they will sell enough, are only available for a short time.  When the books from the first printing are sold, that often means they are no longer available.  Out of Print. 

I have recently been working to bring more diversity to our "chapter books" the books and particulary series that are written for children who are able to read longer books (chapters) but are not yet ready for the dense text and small print of a novel.  This reading level is dominated series such as "Junie B. Jones," by Barbara Park and "Magic Tree House" by Mary Pope Osborne.  Series help young readers by providing familiar characters and sometimes predictable situations.   So what does this have to do with diversity? 

You have to be able to purchase multiple books in a series to provide young readers with this scafold.  If you are a school librarian, like me, in NYC you can only purchase "hard cover, library processed books" from a limited number of vendors or "book jobbers."  Of course "Junie B. Jone," "Ivy and Bean," "Ramona," and "Judy Moody" are available.  Maybe not every single book each time I go shopping, but in a broad variety.  Sharon Draper's "Sassy" books, however are now only available as eBooks.  "Ruby and the Booker Boys," a well recieved series by Derrick Barnes is only available in paperback.  I've been trying to get the series "Willimena Rules" for years. 

What can we do to help?  Buy these books!  Demand that diverse super heroes like "Space Taxi," "Zapato Power," "Gum Girl," "Sticker Girl"  stay in print. 

Reading Again

I re-read and revised this post that I originally wrote in January, 2018.  I feel that this issue is still pertinent!

Rereading, going back and reading something again is "something good readers do."  So it was a little unsettling to re- read an article in an (v71 no. 4) issue of the Reading Teacher magazine an article by Nancy Frey and Douglas Fisher explaining how common instructional practices make students less likely to go back and reread. 

These are some practices that I have been questioning after revisiting this article:
- Modeling retelling and encouraging students to retell by only looking at the pictures.
- Reading assessments (my school used DRA2) that require the student to "retell the story as completely as you can remember" with the book closed.
- Having most of our students exposure to books more complex text be only through the teacher reading to the class.  Very few books are available in multiple copies.

Some teachers address this issue by using online books for shared reading.  I also love that some resources available through the New York Public Library such as Tumblebooks and BookFlix include excellent books with unlimited access.  I particularly appreciate that Kate DiCamillo has made many of her novels available as Tumblebooks eBooks!  Although I recognize that purchasing unlimited use eBooks by school libraries would be a big help, I also know that very little literatuure is published in this format!  What is there is often prohibitavely expensive and or expires after 1 year.  

So what do you do in your school to encourage students to re-read books that you read to them in class?  Do you have class sets of books?  Do you use online reading services?  Or do you have another system that really works?

Welcome!

September 23, 2020

As I update the Notes from a Circle of Readers I have archived most of the previous posts.  I have decided to leave this post as a part of my history.  

I love the students and teachers from PS 360. I was incredibly lucky to have been chosen to serve as their school librarian more than 15 years ago.  Family obligations coinciding with the Covid19 pandemic caused me to make the difficult decision to leave.  Although I am retired from my beloved library, these students and their teachers will always be in my thoughts.

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January 21, 2018

About ten years ago I was walking back from a PD (professional development) meeting at another school.  It was after dismissal time, so some of my students were playing outside.  I passed a group playing Red Light, Green Light.  The student who was "it" put up his hand and said to his friends, "Wait a minute."  He proceded to grill me, where had I been, was I going back to school, would I be in school tomorrow...  His friends got restless, and started to complain.  He turned back to them with a serious face and said "Just a minute!  I have to talk to MY librarian." 

This child's sense of ownership has stuck with me ever sense.  Whenever I am feeling a little bit overwhelmed I remember him and his sense that he owned a piece of me.  I feel incredibly lucky to know that for the kids in my school, seeing them every week gives them a connection to the world of libraries, books and reading.  I feel that I am truly their librarian, and they are my readers.

I have decided to be more public about where I work and what I do.  Although I have grown up with a sense of privacy and a tendency to hesitate before publishing anything "identifiable" on the internet, the world has changed.  I think it is time to write and post on the internet about my work, and the connections between my work and my thoughts about reading, writing and the library.

That said, I will not share students' images or names on this blog unless both the child and their parent haven given explicit permission.