[LM_NET] HIT: Making a Case for YA Books

[Paula Myers <prmlibrarian@GMAIL.COM>]

HIT:  Making a case for YA books

Thanks so much for all the wonderful ideas and answers!  A special
shout-out to the folks who attempted to reply to all of my questions,
and to the woman who shared facts from various sources.

But again, thanks to all...big-time!  Can’t wait to put this info to the test…

Original post:

I just started working in a school library that has very few YA books,
and want to grow this part of the collection, but this has been met
with some resistance.  I'm doing a reading survey (marketed to
students) to get ideas of what our students like to read, but also
want some of your input so I can defend my position (and possibly
broaden my perspective as well).

Suggestions, anecdotes, ideas, especially on the following
questions/topics would be helpful:

1) WHAT DOES THE PROFESSIONAL LITERATURE SAY?
Are there any articles, studies, or "top 10 reasons" that suggest the
importance of YA literature for YAs?

2) READING FOR PLEASURE
How important should reading for pleasure be in a high school library?
What percentage of a school library collection should be devoted to
fun reading (vs. academic/research reading)?

3) YA LIT INVESTMENT
What percentage of one's budget (ideally) should go to YA books?
Why should we in school libraries buy YA novels if the local public
library provides them?
If YA novels haven't circulated in the past, what are some possible reasons?

4) IS YA LIT GOOD FOR STUDENTS?
If most of our students are considered to be "at a higher level," why
would they read YA books?
Should we encourage students to read YA books if they can read more
high level literature?

Some of these are not questions I personally have, but questions
collages have suggested/implied, and I'd like to give good answers.  I
had a lot of success with YA books in my previous position, but I've
talked enough about the differences between that school and this one
so that I can't really use that success to justify YA purchases here.
Our library is heavily used for classes and free study blocks; with so
much traffic, I imagine that YA lit could be a hit here.  Thanks!

Paula Myers
Librarian
L-S Regional High School
Sudbury, MA
paula_myers@lsrhs.net


RESPONSES:

...TO ALL QUESTIONS:

I must admit, the idea of a high school library not having YA books
seems really counter intuitive to me.  Like you, I've had a lot of
success with them.

1)  I'm too tired tonight to search out professional literature or
come up with hard data, so I'll address some of your other questions
more anecdotally.

2)  IMHO, reading for pleasure in a high school library is extremely
important.  They're still kids, so the library should still be helping
instill the love of reading and the pleasure of going to the library
that will follow them into their adult lives.  I can't give you a
number for the percentage that should be devoted to "fun" reading, but
in today's world of increased technology, I think that number is
growing.  Much of the academic/research reading can be found online,
and I'm spending less and less of my money on it.

3)  Not all kids have public library cards (although that also can be
a valuable life skill to teach), but the reasons they don't are as
varied as the kids.  Some have old fines that disallow them from
renewing their cards and don't have the money to pay them off.  Some
don't have transportation to the public library.  Some don't have
time.  Being able to find the book they want in the same location that
they spend 6 hours a day is valuable.  Perhaps YA hasn't circulated in
the past due to the small collection and an apparent attitude among
some faculty members and/or parents that it is frivolous.  With the
extreme budget cuts going on, I haven't been able to keep my
collection as "fresh" this year, and I've noticed a slight decline in
circulation.  In the past, my avid readers could make requests, and I
could fulfill them.  So heartbreaking to see their faces now when I
have to tell them no.  If you get some money to update your YA books,
that would be fantastic!

Absolutely YA lit is "good" for students, regardless of their current
reading abilities.  YA books (even fantasy ones) often address issues,
feelings, situations that adolescents deal with, whether admitted or
not by the adults in their lives.  It helps teenagers process their
lives or live vicariously in other's lives.  The reading level is
immaterial.  Good readers will fly through books that engage them,
poor readers will increase their reading skills through practice.
Here's a big eye opener for me when I started in a library 3 years ago
that uses AR.  Most bestsellers, including the majority of adult books
read by these students' parents and teachers, are written at a 4th or
5th grade reading level.  And frankly, there are a lot of good stories
to be read in the YA world.  As a 51 year old grandmother, my attempt
to stay on top of the books my students are reading is a pleasure for
me as well.

______________________________________

1) WHAT DOES THE PROFESSIONAL LITERATURE SAY?
Are there any articles, studies, or "top 10 reasons" that suggest the
importance of YA literature for YAs? I looked in my YA textbook from a
few years ago and found this paragraph "While young adult literature
helps younger adolescents find themselves in books and begin to think
critically about literature, older adolescents use young adult
literature to help them explore social issues and examine their role
in society. When adolescents perceive books, especially those in the
traditional literary canon, as less relevant, they become disconnected
and lose interest in reading. In contrast, many young adult novels
'possess themes that merit and reward examination and commentary' and
appel to adolescents." (pg9) Young Adult Literature by Katherine
Bucher and M. Lee Manning (2006).

2) READING FOR PLEASURE
How important should reading for pleasure be in a high school library?
 I think fostering reading for pleasure is very important. Many
students who develop a love of reading now, will carry it on into
adulthood. Readng is reading, whether you do it for fun or for class.
Even when students are reading for pleasure they are still learning
vocabulary, grammer structure, information, they are thinking and
analyzing, and creating opinions and thoughts.

What percentage of a school library collection should be devoted to
funreading (vs. academic/research reading)?  This one I have no idea,
but both have equal weight in my opinion. Your collection should
definitely support your curriculum, but you also need to offer a wide
variety of YA titles to cover the various reading tastes/reading
levels/grade levels of your students.

3) YA LIT INVESTMENT
What percentage of one's budget (ideally) should go to YA books? I
don't have a percentage calculated that I spend on YA books, but
fiction is a big chunk of my collection, and a good percentage of that
is YA over adult literature.

Why should we in school libraries buy YA novels if the local public
library provides them? Not all students can access the public library,
especially those that can't drive or don't have cars and are dependent
on parents time/availabilty. Plus, public library budgets are just as
streteched as ours, and they have the added burden of needing to
resources for more than just a young adult population. While some have
very good, diverse collections, others do not.

If YA novels haven't circulated in the past, what are some possible
reasons? Look at what your students want to read. Even when dealing
with YA fiction what we like and what they like might sometimes
differ. How are you marketing them to students. Do you have displays?
Are you doing programs to promote your YA books? Do you talk up the
books and "hand-sell" them to students? Do you offer web links to
sites that review YA literature. How dated are the books? I find
students tend to judge books by their covers. Even if the story is a
classic YA novel and still a good read, if the cover is dated many
times students will skip it.

4) IS YA LIT GOOD FOR STUDENTS?
If most of our students are considered to be "at a higher level," why
would they read YA books? Do we, as adults, always read books that are
considered at a higher level or even "literature" for that matter?  I
know I don't. So why should students Also YA literature has
experienced a revival in recent years. There are some truly great
books being published that, in terms of literary merit are equal to
what is published for adults (and in some cases even greater! - case
in point my current read of The Book Thief by Markus Zusak).

Should we encourage students to read YA books if they can read more
high level literature? Definitely! YA books are written for them. They
are the intended audience. The experiences the characters go through
in YA books are generally things our students can identify with,
regardless of genre. We all like to see reflections of ourselves in
the books we read. High level literature, while worthwhile reading,
doesn't always provide that.

________________________________________________________________________________

GENERAL SUGGESTIONS, IDEAS, AND ANECDOTES RELATED TO MY QUESTIONS:

I am doing the exact same thing in my own school library right now,
and I say ... DO IT!  I have only been able to add about 35 YA books
to the collection so far, but since I have done so, circulation has
skyrocketed ... more of the YA books have been checked out than all
the other books in the whole library.  The kids love it and flock to
the section.  Above the section I post the YA bestseller list from the
NY times every week and highlight the books from the list that we have
in the library.  I also have a list of books that are similar to
Twilight and Harry Potter that they might be interested in.  I'd
really recommend that you spend a lot of time on the YALSA website,
which you can get to from ALA.org -- they will have the answers to all
of the questions you posted.  It is a field that is exploding --there
are lots of books and scholarly articles about this right now.

Also, it would be great if you could get some of the English teachers
at your school on board.  It's helpful to me that one of the teachers
here has an independent reading requirement, and makes the kids read
three books of their own choice throughout the school year -- and the
kids mostly come to my YA section to find those books.  Perhaps
someone is doing that, or is interested in doing that, at your school.
 It is really coming back into fashion in English classrooms again.
___________________________________________________________


I'm assuming that the people you will have this discussion with have
at least one advanced degree.  It might be interesting to survey them
prior to your discussion & ask what they have read outside of work in
the last year-6 months.  If I were a betting woman, I'd bet that few,
if any of them, are reading material that is on a level "higher" (or
even as high) than their education.  Why then should we expect that of
our students?

______________________________________________________________

YA covers a huge span - I work in a middle school and a lot of the
books I have are YA books. Many of these books are super popular. But
there are a lot of YA books that I don't feel that I could justify for
my collection, they are just too mature. For example The Absolutely
True Diary of a Part Time Indian. I love that book, but don't feel
like I can put it on my shelves where sixth graders could be reading
it. But it is perfect for HS. Look at many of the Michael Printz Award
(YA Literature) winners - they are a notch above Newbery - some I can
buy, some I can't. Adult literature, when you look at the reading
level, is not necessarily higher-level than YA books. We use lexile
reading levels in our school, and most adult books (ie. classics) are
no higher in lexile than many of the YA books. Many of them are lower!

_____________________________________________________________

After assessing and evaluating our collection, I came to the
conclusion that the previous librarian was more like a prescriptive
dictionary -- our collection was heavy on "the classics" and "what you
should be reading" according to decades-old reading lists.  YA lit was
practically non-existent.
I began buying YA books -- and couldn't keep them on the shelves.  I'm
not kidding.  Students who had never set foot inside this library
became regulars.  Kids who bragged about not having read a book since
elementary school actually started reading again.  Our circulation
numbers doubled.
The only way to improve a student's reading ability is to have him or
her read.  It's that simple.  And if they will read "Twilight" . . .
and come back for the rest of the series, then seek out other series
and authors . . . then so be it.  They are reading.

____________________________________________________________

Personally, I believe that YA books get the kids in and get them
reading. They have to want to read and to enjoy it before they can
read the classics. My coulleague and I replaced a couple of media
specialists who believed the media center should ONLY be used for
research. We had the opening day fiction collection from 1979 on the
shelves and that was it in fiction. My south rural Georgia Title One
students weren't interested in Georgette Heyer, etc. We spent a lot of
time and money collecting YA books. Over the past 3 years, our
circulation is up over 400% and we made AYP for the first time EVER
last year.

___________________________________________________________


do you use follett's titlewave (titlewise) to order materials?
if not, check it out!
www.flr.follett.com
you can export/import the library's electronic card catalog for a
collection analysis
a sales rep commented that we were fiction heavy, as nearly all high
school libraries are
it would provide an average date for each section of the library

__________________________________________________________________

Perhaps my definition of YA is more expansive than just books written
specifically for the YA audience.  In defining "YA" books to staff and
 administrators, I emphasize the age of the main character (s) being
similar to the reader thus the students can better relate to the plot,
 theme, & etc.  Consequently, this expands the category to include
many  of the classics.  Could "Oliver Twist", "Huck Finn", Farrell's
"Studs  Lonigan",  "Red Badge Of Courage", Chaim Potok's "My Name Is
Asher  Lev", Swartout's "The Shootist", "True Grit", or "To Kill A
Mockingbird" be considered YA?  If not, why not? Are the key "YA"
characteristics just  writing style and shallow theme(s)?  I don't
think so.


________________________________________________________________________________

RESEARCH OR REFERENCES TO RESEARCH ABOUT YA BOOKS' IMPORTANCE, ETC.:

Less than one-third of 13-year-olds are daily readers, a 14 percent
decline from 20 years earlier. Among 17-year-olds, the percentage of
non-readers doubled over a 20-year period, from nine percent in 1984
to 19 percent in 2004. 1

While literacy skills are essential for young children, older children
and teens need to maintain and expand upon those skills or they can
find themselves falling behind. 5

"Everybody pays attention to younger kids and their getting a chance
to read," said Cathy Lichtman, young adult librarian for the Plymouth
Public Library. "If people aren't paying attention to older kids, they
don't develop reading skills much beyond the sixth-grade level." 5

Getting teen -agers into the library is important, because it teaches
them the lifelong habits of reading and of library usage. 5

On average, Americans ages 15 to 24 spend almost two hours a day
watching TV, and only seven minutes of their daily leisure time on
reading. 2

American 15-year-olds ranked fifteenth in average reading scores for
31 industrialized nations, behind Poland, Korea, France, and Canada,
among others. 3

Literary readers are more likely than non-readers to engage in
positive civic and individual activities - such as volunteering,
attending sports or cultural events, and exercising. 4

Individuals demonstrating higher levels of literacy were more likely
to be employed, work more weeks in a year, and earn higher wages than
individuals demonstrating lower proficiencies. 6

Works Cited
1. U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics (NCES)
U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, American Time
Use Survey (2006)
2. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Learning
for Tomorrow's World: First Results from PISA 2003
3. National Endowment for the Arts, The Arts and Civic Engagement:
Involved in Arts, Involved in Life (2006)
4. Special to The Detroit News ; Amy Kuras. (2004, April 19).
5. Libraries reach out to teen-agers - Most use young adult advisory
boards to get input on programs, materials to attract peers. Detroit
News, The (MI) No Dot ed., 03C. Retrieved September, 10 2009 from
NewsBank on-line database (America's Newspapers)
6. NAAL, National Assessment of Adult Literacy
___________________________________________________________

A good book worth investing in is:
Young Adult Literature: Exploration, Evaluation, and Appreciation. It
goes into many aspects concerning YA literature.
Author: Katherine Bucher, M. Lee Manning
____________________________________________________________


Krashen, Stephen.  The Power of Reading. 2nd ed.  Libraries Unlimited, 2004.
a review of the research literature on "Free Voluntary Reading,"
includes many studies about the value of "Free Voluntary Reading" for
all ages, including teens

Ross, Catherine Sheldrick, Lynne McKechnie, and Pauletter M.
Rothbauer.  Reading Matters: What the Research Reveals about Reading,

Libraries, and Communities.  Libraries Unlimited, 2006.
especially Ch. 3 - Young Adults and Reading

____________________________________________________________

Hartman, M., Jones, P., and Taylor, P. (2006). Connecting with
reluctant teen reader: Tips, titles, and tools. New York: Neal-Schuman
Publishers.


Rai, B. Race and Young-Adult fiction. The ultimate teen book guide Ed.
Daniel Hann, Theonie Flyan, and Susan Rueben. New York: Walker and
company 2006, 2008. 374-375.
and of course Book Crush, Book Lust, and More Book Lust for reasons to
include Y.A. literature.

_____________________________________________________________

You may want to read some research by Kelley Gallagher.  He is an English
teacher in California who insists that it is just as important for teens to
be reading YA lit as it is for them to be reading the classics.  He requires
his students to read what they must in class and a book for enjoyment.  For
which he has various motivating assignments.
________________________________________________________

Look for websites/articles on the philophophy of Nancy Atwell or Kelly
Gallagher (sp?). There was also a NYTimes article circulating in the
fall about improving reading skills by allowing students to read
books/materials of their choice. I'm sure someone will send you that.
Both Atwell & Gallagher have written great books and have a lot of
wonderful resources available online as well.

____________________________________________________________

Articles found via ebsco host database:

Title: Early Adolescents' Reading Habits.
Authors: Creel, Stacy L.
Source: Young Adult Library Services; Summer2007, Vol. 5 Issue 4,
p46-49, 4p, 4 graphs
Abstract:
The article presents surveys which focus on the early adolescents'
reading habits in the U.S. In Marc Aronson's book of essays "Exploding
the Myths: The Truth about Teenagers and Reading," he presents a
collection of misconceptions about the reading habits of teenagers,
including three of the most common, which are teens do not read at
all, teens only read adult books, and teens do not have time to read.
Details on the surveys conducted by the journal and St. John's
University are also discussed in the article.
ISSN: 1541-4302
Persistent link to this record (Permalink):
http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=tfh&an=25546117&site=ehost-live

Title:  Do teenagers like to read? Yes!
Authors:  Krashen, Stephen
Source: Reading Today; Apr/May2001, Vol. 18 Issue 5, p16, 3/4p
Abstract:
Presents the results of surveys on the value of reading to adolescents
and teenagers in the United States. Mellon poll reported in the
`School Library Journal'; SmartGirl poll reported in October 1999 on
the SmartGirl.com; READ California poll.
Persistent link to this record (Perma link):
http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=lfh&an=4383787&site=ehost-live


Title:  Schools need to enhance their literary collections.
Authors:  Lovely, Gail
Source:  Curriculum Administrator; Oct99, Vol. 35 Issue 10, p11, 2/5p
Abstract:
Reports that The International Reading Association has adopted
resolutions regarding adolescent literacy, books and other materials
for classrooms and school media centers. Details of the adolescent
literacy resolution; Specifications of the quality and quantity of
print materials available in classrooms, school library media centers
and town libraries.
ISSN:  1082-5495
Persistent link to this record ( Permalink):
http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=tfh&an=2536194&site=ehost-live

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