HIT>Stephen King

[Andrea Lynn Hubbard <ahubbard@PEN.K12.VA.US>]

 Dear Fellow LM NETers,

 First, THANK YOU to all of you who responded to my question
 about your thoughts on Stephen King at the middle school
 level.  I know it has taken me too long to get back to you all
 with a compilation of the responses and I hope I haven't broken
 any "netiquette" rules in the process.

 I received 30 or so responses and the opinions were as follows:

 For those libraries that HAD Stephen King, their reasonings
 were:


 1.  Popularity -- it's what the kids want to read.  His books
 are among the best circulated.

 2.  "Bait and switch" -- they use the books as hooks to get students
 in and then they steer them towards other more "appropriate" YA suspense
 authors, i.e. Nixon, Duncan, Cooney, Stine and Pike.

 3.  Quality -- aside from the graphic gore, he is actually a
 very good writer; his books have substance beyond the horror.
 Kids have to be good readers to read his books and those who
 aren't good readers tend to give up and return the books before
 finishing them.

 4.  Access -- kids already have access to his books through
 parent purchases, bookstores and libraries so why restrict them
 from reading them at school?  There are far worse things on TV.


 For those libraries that DID NOT have any Stephen King, their
 reasonings were:

 1.  Graphic violence -- not appropriate for 11 - 13 year olds.
 kids tend to go stright for the "good parts" and skip the rest.

 2.  Adult themes -- intended audience is for adults; many
 include foul language and sexual references (although not usually graphic).
 Almost all are from adult viewpoints and while this isn't bad
 in itself, the young readers don't tend to get much out of the
 books; all they care about is the gore.

 3.  Curriculum -- the books aren't accepted as book report
 material and don't support the curriculum.

 4.  Access -- the books are only in the adult section of the
 public library and some libraries won't check them out to under
 14 year olds.

 5.  Circulation -- the kids have a hard time getting through a
 whole SK book; why purchase when they aren't really reading his
 books?  Also, the books are high on the theft list.

 6.  Age -- in schools that cover many grades, can't restrict
 his books just to the older children, so they don't purchase
 them at all.

 7.  Parental objections -- many parents are adamant that their
 children not read SK.

 8.  Selection policy -- his books did not pass the selection
 polict test.


 The majority of responses were NOT in favor of Stephen King at
 the midle school level.  While not advocating censorship, they
 felt that he was just not appropriate for that age group.

 The only exception was _Eyes of the Dragon_ ; this was written
 for young readers and everyone was in favor of it.

 Reading all of the responses and comments was VERY helpful to
 me and I sincerely appreciate the time taken to respond.  I
 have decided to examine my county's selection policy, read more
 SK books (I won't put any in my collection til I've read them),
 obtain reviews from ALA and then decide whether they are
 appropriate for my kids.  If I decide not to include him, with
 the consensus of responses received in the last 2 weeks, I
 feel that I will be justified and needn't feel like a raging
 censor.

 THANK YOU again and happy reading.  If you have any additional
 comments, I'd love to hear from you.

 Andrea


--
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Andrea Hubbard                           "If a being does not keep pace
Librarian                                  with its companions, perhaps
Spotsylvania Middle School                 it is because it hears a
Spotsylvania, VA                           different drummer...
ahubbard@pen.k12.va.us                     or maybe it's just a weirdo."
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