School Librarians are Unsung Heroes
Librarians, in general, have a lot on their plates.
School librarians have even more.
They generally know their “clientele” by name, know their interests, actively suggest books, read stories aloud, teach kids about proper book-handling behavior, anticipate readers’ future interests and book trends. (When my kids were growing up, their school librarian also used to dress up as various fiction characters.)
Recently, I interviewed two elementary school librarians in my area (Santa Cruz County, California) to see what they’re up to.
The schools have between 350 and 425 students, spread out over pre-kindergarten (about age 4/5) through sixth grade (about age 11/12).
Megan Jacobsmeyer at Mar Vista Elementary has been at her school for six years.
Kellie Lowe at Rio Del Mar Elementary has been at hers for eight. (I interviewed Kellie last February for this blog.)
I was curious how they chose the books that ended up on their shelves.
It’s a year-round process, they told me, and heavily depends on the school’s budget, of course.
Megan asks herself several questions before ordering new books, including:
What are the students asking for?
What are their interests?
Do the various reading levels or genres need more options?
What books have characters that will represent the students, their families, and their experiences?
Who is currently not represented in our school library?
Kellie says she also talks to local book shops whose buyers have a wealth of knowledge about quality children’s books and authors.
She aims to keep a balance of 50/50 fiction/non-fiction.
Both librarians tell me that graphic novels continue to be popular.
At Megan’s school, kids were interested in memoirs in graphic novel format.
Since I don’t follow graphic novels, I didn’t know this genre even had memoir titles.
Doing some quick (thank you, Amazon) research, I saw one called In Limbo, a Korean-American coming-of-age by Deb JJ Lee, and Colin Kaepernick’s Change the Game for 12 year olds and up.
At Kellie’s school, students are reading graphic novels that are adaptations of more challenging books, such as The City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau or The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan.
Both librarians noted that their students seem more interested in realistic fiction than they have in the past.
These would include books such as Jason Reynolds’ Track series.
I found this interesting because I had thought that fantasy books kind of ruled the children’s book world.
Megan said that for many kids, the length of these fantasy novels/series can be intimidating.
As for Kellie, she said that the excitement for fantasy books seems to dwindle by the upper grades, with the exception of Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien and other epic fantasy novels.
I was encouraged to see that at Megan’s school, An Elephant and Piggie Biggie was on the Top 10 List of Most Circulated Titles.
This is an early reader series by Mo Willems that’s been around for a number of years, and since I’m writing a chapter book/early reader series…yay!
The Top 10 was rounded out by author Raina Telgemeier with four books (graphic novels) on the list, Jeff Kinney (most notably, author of Diary of a Wimpy Kid series) with four books, Shannon Hale with one, Real Friends.
I asked both librarians what they might advise an author to write (ahem, asking for a friend) based on what they see their students enjoying.
Kellie said authors should write anything that excited them as a young reader because “your passion and story will find the right reader.”
Megan said authors can help readers by creating books where the kids “can see some of themselves in the story” or where the point-of view character is different from them and, therefore, an engaging curiosity.
Thank you, to both Megan Jacobsmeyer and Kellie Lowe, for taking time out of your busy schedules to answer my questions…and for being so in-tune with the kids at your school.
What a great resource.
Look for interviews with school librarians across the country in future posts here.
Until next time, have a great week!
~Gail
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