Posts on crazy patrons

Ooo, some parents make me so mad!

Tonight I was walking through the junior high section when I overheard an exchange between a mom and her daughter, who appeared to be about twelve years old. The girl had picked out a book from the S.A.S.S. series.

Mom said, "That looks a little too snacky. Let's look for something else. Let's see, have you ever read any Virginia Woolf?"

Alternate-Universe Me snatched the S.A.S.S. book from Mom's disapproving fingers and whacked her over the head with it. Respect-Patrons'-Privacy Me walked away seething.

What is it about free reading that some parents don't understand? What's wrong with "snacky"? Why must reading be a chore?

Author Shannon Hale has a nice article in the October School Library Journal about how assigned reading (including Virginia Woolf) temporarily destroyed her love of reading, though she didn't realize it at the time. Alternate-Universe Me would have strapped this mom to a chair and made her read the article.

This story has a slightly more satisfying conclusion than I would have expected, however. A few minutes after my eavesdropping, the girl and her mother came to the desk asking for diary/memoir recommendations (Mom's idea again). The girl had, of course, returned the S.A.S.S. book to the shelf, but at least she'd replaced it with some other good books actually written for people her age. Still, Alternate-Universe Me couldn't help manifesting for a second.

Me: Oh! You decided not to take the S.A.S.S. book?
Girl: Um, no. I changed my mind.
Mom, to girl: Why was that?
Girl: Um, that was the book you said looked like a 'TV book.'
Mom: It did look like a 'TV book.'
Me: They're definitely not 'TV books.' In fact, those books are really interesting and fun. They're all written by authors who have special knowledge of the countries they take place in. They're a window into another culture.
[That's right, spread it on thick...]
Mom: Do you want to go back and get it, honey?
Girl: Um, no, that's OK.

I console myself that maybe next time they're here, when the girl picks up an S.A.S.S. book, Mom will say OK. If only the same could be said for any book that girl picks out.

ETA, 10/23/08:
For the record, I can only guess at what "TV Book" was supposed to mean. Did they mean a book based on a TV show? Did they mean a book that "rots the brain"? Regardless: HMMMPH!

In library school, you learn about the importance of the "reference interview." When a patron comes up to the desk, instead of tapping immediately at your keyboard or running to the shelf, you're supposed to answer the patron's question with another question. The purpose is to translate the question the patron asks into the question the patron means. Sometimes, as I was reminded tonight, these two things can be very different.

Girl: Do you have nonfiction science books?
Me: Sure. What kind of science are you interested in?
Girl: Mixing things together, I guess. To make things.
Me: Okay. Do you mean like chemistry?
Girl: I think so. Like potions?
Me: Um, okay. What kind of potions do you want to make?
Girl: Let me go ask my friend. It's his question.

The girl ran off to find her friend, a young boy, and I was left wondering if they wanted science fair books or Wizardology. No, my friends, it got stranger...

Boy: I need a science book.
Me: Right. What kind of science?
Boy: I need to know how to make things.
Me: Sure. What kind of things?
Boy: Animals.
Me: Um, okay. Make animals out of what?
Boy: Paper.
Me: Oh... do you mean ORIGAMI???
Boy: Yes! That's it! Origami!

And so we skipped off to the origami section, and the boy and girl picked out some books on making easy origami animals, and we all lived happily ever after—though the librarian among us was left both bemused and amused.

Our summer reading club ends this weekend, which always creates a bit of anxiety for me. This is the moment of truth, for our reading club members and for us, too. For the members, did they meet the club goal in order to receive their prize? And for us, what can of worms have we opened by incentivizing reading in this way?

This is the time when we hear all kinds of excuse from parents why their child could not meet the reading goal. Said child was on vacation with the family. Said child had summer camp. Said child read very challenging books. Or, most frequently, "But my child read Harry Potter!"

There is no question that by setting a flat goal for all members (unless parents make special arrangements at the beginning of the summer), the club is not fair. Some kids are strong readers, others are not. Some kids read books way below their level, others stretch above. Some kids have five million structured activities, others have none. Yet we ask the same thing of each of them: to read eight books in ten weeks. It is not fair, in the way that very little in life is. But it's the best solution we've come up with so far.

I don't like making reading a numbers game. It doesn't seem right to say, "Read one Harry Potter book if you like, then read seven easy readers just so you can meet the goal." (Members can, of course, do so.) We praise all the members who report on their books, regardless of whether they will meet the club goal. There are small prizes along the way, too. But that final prize becomes larger than life in the eyes of some parents.

That's when we end up with situations that are stressful for staff, humiliating for the children, and... I don't know what... for the freaked out parents. Fortunately, it is not anything close to a majority of parents who do this; it's really only a handful, but they make themselves memorable. They hold their child's reading log in your face (as the child stands close by, staring at the ground), inform you that little Johnny/Susie worked really, really hard to read those two books, and waits expectantly for you to say, "Yes, of course, just because you asked, it's perfectly all right if Johnny/Susie gets the same prize as the children who followed the rules and met the goal."

My supervisor directed our attention to an editorial in yesterday's New York Times, Camp Codependence, about the "affluenza" infecting certain well-to-do parents. They are pushy. They are overprotective. They encourage their children to break rules, both by example and by suggestion.

That's what these particular (and again, fortunately, few) summer reading club parents are doing when they ask the rules to be broken just, apparently, so they can get a prize. If it's unhealthy for the library to incentivize reading through our goals and prizes (a matter of some debate), it's even unhealthier for parents to devalue their children's efforts by placing so much importance on the prize, over the reading experience, that they demand the rules be broken in order to get it.

Topping the list of frequently asked questions for librarians is, without question, some variation on, "Where is the bathroom?"

I have no problem with this. It's typically a question with a lot more urgency behind it than, "What should I read now that I've read The Battle of the Labyrinth and the next Percy Jackson book isn't coming out until 2009?" or "I need a biography book." (Typically.)

What gets me is when patrons, adults as well as children, ask me, "Do you know where the bathroom is?" To which it is all I can do not to say, "After working here almost three years, I should certainly hope so!"

I'm fully aware of the persnicketiness of this reaction. It's akin to snidely responding to the question, "Can I go to the bathroom?" with, "I don't know. Can you?" Which is why I don't say what I'm thinking; I say, "In the hallway, to the left of the stairs."

But I still think it. Every time.

Babymouse... The Mouse Guard... lea11k at Library Voice relates the hilarious tale of an enraged, muriphobic mom demanding to know what's the deal with all the mice?

What I want to know is, where's this mom been for the past 50 years? Lea mentions Stuart Little and If You Give a Mouse a Cookie as other examples of mouse-centric classics, but that's just the tip of the iceberg! What about...

- Redwall?
- Poppy?
- A Cricket in Times Square?
- Geronimo Stilton?
- The Bookstore Mouse?
- Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH?
- The Mouse and His Child?
- Deptford Mice?
- Spy Mice?
- Jean Van Leeuwen's books about the mice who live in Macy's?

And that's not even touching the gazillion picture books about the bright-eyed little critters...

Periodically the question "What is YA?" comes up on various blogs and forums I read. It's a fair question, since industry professioinals' ideas of what qualifies varies and has changed over the decades. Disparity the content's maturity and reading level causes all sorts of confusion.

Sometimes, though, one has to wonder just what people are thinking. The other day at the library, I overheard the following from a mother whose six-year-old son was using the catalog: "You're looking for Ramona books? I know where those are. They're in the young adult section."

It was all I could do not to bust up laughing. Six-year-olds are young adults now, are they? And Ramona Quimby is young adult literature? Sure, I'll sometimes call a six-year-old "young man" or "young lady", and people of all ages can enjoy Ramona. And yet...

I don't expect parents to understand the jargon book industry professionals apply to kids' books, but I would love to know just what this mom had read in the Times or the Trib or Family Fun that put this idea in her head.

(For the record, my library shelves the Ramona books in Children's, a/k/a Juvenile, Fiction.)