Welcome To The Mystery Building
Sep. 6th, 2012 04:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bloodyrosemccoySchool's back in session, and you know what that means for the library!
That's right: we've been completely overrun by kids who look like they've never seen the inside of a library before. Some of 'em hit that fine line between not academic enough to have been in a library, but motivated enough to follow their teacher's recommendations. Others have been dragged there by well-meaning parents, who incidentally also look as if they've never been in a library before.
It's fascinating to me. I picked up Librarying at a very young age,* so it's a little weird when you get a 15-year-old coming up and saying "My teacher wants me to read a novel. Are these novels?" I keep coming across parents trying to help their kids find good books staring at the middle grade in dawning terror as they realize they are in way over their heads. And I forget they're easily confused by library jargon--you know, obscure terms like "fiction" and "picture book."**
It can either be awesome or terrible to be the one helping them. Yes, my soul dies a little every time I see a Required Reading List, but if the kid doesn't even try to find a book on the list they like--if they shove the list at me and say "I need one of these books" and when I say "Well, what kind of book do you like, so I can find one you might enjoy?" answer with a surly "Iun't care," they get Les Miserables, because WORK WITH ME HERE.
On the other hand, it's really fun when they ask what I'd recommend, and actually are interested in an answer. "Well, what kinds of books do you like? Dragons? History? Aliens? Egypt? True stories? Vampires? Mysteries?*** I've got something for that!" And when a kid comes back and loved a book you got 'em, one that you loved, then by god YOU ARE THE KING OF EVERYTHING! Makes me glad they--or their parents--were motivated enough to check out the strange new building their teacher mentioned.
*I still remember the first book I deliberately found on the shelf. I wanted to read Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, and I knew it was by Roald Dahl, so I went and looked under "D." I was maybe seven.
**Although some of the little kids come up with some clever ways to describe things when they don't know the term for it. I had one little girl (the Boss Princess, no less) quite deliberately declare "I'm looking for a book that opens things." Took me a while to suss out that she was looking for lift-the-flap books.
***I have to specify like that because sometimes when I just ask "What kinds of books do you like?" they literally have no idea. My other strategy when that's the case is to ask what kind of movies they like.
That's right: we've been completely overrun by kids who look like they've never seen the inside of a library before. Some of 'em hit that fine line between not academic enough to have been in a library, but motivated enough to follow their teacher's recommendations. Others have been dragged there by well-meaning parents, who incidentally also look as if they've never been in a library before.
It's fascinating to me. I picked up Librarying at a very young age,* so it's a little weird when you get a 15-year-old coming up and saying "My teacher wants me to read a novel. Are these novels?" I keep coming across parents trying to help their kids find good books staring at the middle grade in dawning terror as they realize they are in way over their heads. And I forget they're easily confused by library jargon--you know, obscure terms like "fiction" and "picture book."**
It can either be awesome or terrible to be the one helping them. Yes, my soul dies a little every time I see a Required Reading List, but if the kid doesn't even try to find a book on the list they like--if they shove the list at me and say "I need one of these books" and when I say "Well, what kind of book do you like, so I can find one you might enjoy?" answer with a surly "Iun't care," they get Les Miserables, because WORK WITH ME HERE.
On the other hand, it's really fun when they ask what I'd recommend, and actually are interested in an answer. "Well, what kinds of books do you like? Dragons? History? Aliens? Egypt? True stories? Vampires? Mysteries?*** I've got something for that!" And when a kid comes back and loved a book you got 'em, one that you loved, then by god YOU ARE THE KING OF EVERYTHING! Makes me glad they--or their parents--were motivated enough to check out the strange new building their teacher mentioned.
*I still remember the first book I deliberately found on the shelf. I wanted to read Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, and I knew it was by Roald Dahl, so I went and looked under "D." I was maybe seven.
**Although some of the little kids come up with some clever ways to describe things when they don't know the term for it. I had one little girl (the Boss Princess, no less) quite deliberately declare "I'm looking for a book that opens things." Took me a while to suss out that she was looking for lift-the-flap books.
***I have to specify like that because sometimes when I just ask "What kinds of books do you like?" they literally have no idea. My other strategy when that's the case is to ask what kind of movies they like.
