Can't resist a little input on this subject. When I arrived at my 6/7/8
middle school four years ago, the 60-some magazines were nearly all
adult-type "research" & curriculum related and were never touched. I
wanted magazines that were more suitable for MS and made curriculum more
interesting, especially since the "heavies" were available online.
I now carry 6 Scholastic offerings and 3 from Weekly Reader (since I
switched from heavy backboard covers to lightweight all-plastic covers,
they are regularly read). Other curriculum-related mags are the
Calliope/Cobblestone/Faces group, a couple science ones, and Kids
Discover (that I keep and index).
I also get Best Friends from the NSPCA which is pretty popular, along
with Girl's and Boy's Life, Listen & Guideposts for Teens for
conservatives. For special populations I get Blackgirl (Oprah's
recommendation!), New Moon, Skipping Stones and Stone Soup and a couple
others. For popular stuff I get Teen People, Teen Voices, Right On
(which has posters in the center that I remove and "auction off" for
book shelving duty) and J-14, along with Jet, SI Kids, BMX Plus, and
Electronic Gaming Monthly. The only real adult mags I still get are
Sports Illustrated, Basketball Digest, Black Belt, and National Wildlife
plus a couple more I decided to drop next year for lack of interest.
My magazine use has steadily increased as I've replaced "boring" stuff
with kid-oriented stuff. I decided "less-is-more" so am down to about
30 and plan to drop to about 24 next year. But they are a couple dozen
that are regularly read and enjoyed. Kids asked for old issues, so
online-available ones are put on a shelf for students to take home (one
at a time, but they can come back as often as they want). I figure
anything that encourages home reading is good! At the end of the school
year I distribute any old issues to classrooms for final exam week so
students who finish early have something to read--teachers appreciate
this and I get oldies out of the library to a useful end.
I'd like to mention that magazine use increased dramatically when I
added a couch; I now have a little "living room" next to the shelves and
kids love to plop down and read. I rotate out little-used but
interesting reference books as "coffee-table books" and kids even flip
through those! I'm seriously considering a hot chocolate machine!
Barbara Paciotti, Librarian
Barbara Bush MS, Irving Texas
barupa@swbell.net
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