Re: Favorite books YOU like to read

[Elizabeth Bentley <elizabeth@WARDROBE.DIRCON.CO.UK>]

On 4/4/99 Anne Kellner wrote:

>Is our school unusual? Do your children tend to select books frequently
>in this order:
>     1. Size of book i.e.# of pages
>     2. Size of print
>     3. Appeal of cover
>     4. Paperback or hardcover - some kids would
>         rather take a different title out in
>         paperback if the only remaining copy of a
>         popular title is hardback.
>
I think the hardback/paperback issue is a very real one, to the point where
I simply don't buy hardback fiction at all. I once heard a talk given by
the author Peter Dickenson (Changes Trilogy etc). He told of a booktalk he
once gave when a boy asked why he wrote the 'hard' version first. He
realised that the boy really believed that the paperback edition was an
easier read than the hardback. I find this strange myself, as the print is
often larger in the hardback than the paperback.

Only if a title is actully prescribed for a course do many pupils willingly
take out hardbacks.

Interestingly, English school libraries are currently having a hardback
collection of the Everyman world classics, in a uniform black and white
cover, wished on us through lottery funding. This will eventually amount to
about 250 books, but already the 50 or so I have put out are beginning to
dominate my shelves. Relatively few are actually suitable for my 11-16 year
olds anyway. Time will tell whether many are read.

-------------------------------------------------------
Elizabeth Bentley
Head of Learning Resources
Northbrook C of E School
Taunton Road
Lee, London SE12 8PD
e-mail: elizabeth@wardrobe.dircon.co.uk
Tel: 0181 852 3191
Fax: 0181 463 0201

email: sln-owner@egroups.com
           sln@wardrobe.dircon.co.uk
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