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Reading Is Fundamental

Hard to find anyone who would argue with that.  In fact, it’s a favorite soapbox of all kinds of politicians, who love to bemoan the state of literacy and the failure rate of American students on standardized testing of reading skills.

Well, to be fair, it’s one of my soapboxes too. The importance of reading, and getting kids (and other people) engaged with reading and learning, is something I’m really passionate about. And a big part of getting kids connected with books is to give them books. Seems obvious, I know. But not every kid grows up in a home filled with books,  or with parents who love reading and model it. There are a lot of adults who struggle with reading, or avoid it.  Some kids don’t even have a home… and without an address, you generally can’t get a library card.  And many don’t have the money to get a book of their own.

And that is why, as Nicholas Kristof wrote in a New York Times op-ed (a portion of which is quoted here) programs like Reading is Fundamental (RIF) and First Book are so vital to developing a nation of readers. The ownership of a book is an incredible gift of power. Not only does it increase children’s interest in and enjoyment of reading, but it positively affects family literacy and offers new opportunities for educators to involve their students in reading and learning.

So, if our elected officials agree that reading is vital, and programs like RIF and First Book encourage and promote literacy and reading for kids, families, and schools, with research supporting their practices, why are they cutting funding for these programs?

Hope for the future comes from reading and learning there’s more to life than what you see. Children, and the world,  need hope. And books. Or they’ll be left bereft, as well as behind.

Posted on July 25, 2011 by , Reply

Kelly Link, Small Beer Press, and Weightless Books

Kelly Link is one of the most original writers I have come across in many many years of reading all kinds of things. She started out writing for small press, and in the past few years had a collection of short stories for teens, called Pretty Monsters, published by Penguin, and reviewed here. I first discovered her work when I was looking for books published by Shaun Tan (I had just experienced his graphic tale, The Arrival) and once I started reading, I couldn’t stop with just one story. I told everyone who would listen to me about the book, and was very excited to have the opportunity to interview her last summer when the paperback edition of Pretty Monsters came out.

Pretty Monsters was not her first book. Stranger Things Happen, her first full length collection, was published in the small press, by Small Beer Press, in 2001. This is the book Karen Russell described and read from on NPR recently (here’s a  link to Karen Russell’s introduction. If you’d like to listen to her read from the book, you can do that from this page too). Karen claimed that Kelly’s work transcends a librarian’s ability to catalog it. Which is nonsense. To quote one of my favorite essays “Librarians can catalog anything… They can even catalog you.” Even though we can (and do) catalog Kelly’s work, though, she is an amazing, boundary-defying writer. In addition to writing, she also is a college professor, and runs both a zine (Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet) and Small Beer Press, with her husband, Gavin J. Grant.

When I learned about the story on NPR, I was inspired to revisit Kelly’s website, where I learned that Kelly and Gavin had published an ebook called Sea, Ship, Mountain, Sky. A new book I could try… I had to find it. A link sent me to Weightless Books, which I had never heard of. But it’s a pretty neat place! It’s a small, independent online bookstore, and it provides an opportunity for writers to publish things that don’t fall into established categories, for small presses to make their works available, and for readers to acquire DRM-free ebooks that can be downloaded in a variety of formats to a variety of devices. Weightless Books does appear to be selective about the authors and publishers they will accept, but also appears to be slowly expanding its offerings, and many of their titles fall into genres such as science fiction, fantasy, speculative fiction and, yes, horror. It’s an interesting place to explore, and I encourage you to check it out. I think Sea, Ship, Mountain, Sky is a fantastic story,  and I like the philosophy behind the site. Amazon.com is well-known, and library wholesalers capture a significant chunk of the library market. Places like Weightless Books will make it possible to fill in gaps for audiences who want to read interesting authors and books from interesting presses, that aren’t available easily in any other way.

Once again, Kelly, and Gavin J. Grant (who runs the site) rock.

 

Posted on July 24, 2011 by , Reply

Help a Reader Out: Entering the Twilight Zone

No, this has nothing to do with a certain series by Stephenie Meyer, or even with Rod Serling. I’ve received a request from a science teacher moving from teaching high school to teaching eighth grade who needs to build a classroom library appropriate for middle school students. If you follow trends in YA fiction at all, you might have noticed that  some YA books are very dark, and they can be very explicit. In fact, there’s a debate going on right now about this very thing.  Most of these books are aimed at older teens, ages 15-18, and that means that they aren’t terribly appropriate for a classroom library for middle schoolers.  Just because younger kids CAN and DO read some of those books, doesn’t mean they are the best selections for their classroom library. However, in spite of the fact that I personally enjoy reading books for upper elementary students, most middle schoolers are moving beyond those. It is a tricky age to find reading material that walks the line.

This doesn’t mean books can’t have dark themes. But  books with foul language, explicit sex, and extreme violence and gore are not great choices for the majority of middle schoolers. As with any age, though, many of them love suspense, cliffhangers, a good scare, adventure, a little romance, humor, mystery, and stories about kids who might be going though the same things they are.  Among other things.

Do you have any ideas as to good titles for a middle school classroom library? What did you read for pleasure at that age? Honestly, I probably read more of a variety of titles and genres in middle school than I have at any other time of my life, and I’d be happy to share some of my favorites with you, and with her, but I’m one person. What are your suggestions?

Posted on July 20, 2011 by , 4 comments
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