Posts on free reading

Parents as Literary Dieticians

Lisa — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 19:27:42 -0700

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!

No Such Thing as a Free Book

Lisa — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 12:57:03 -0700

For its summer reading club, my department puts no restrictions on what kids may read. They don't have to read particular titles or genres, fiction or nonfiction. They don't have to read library books. They don't even have to read in the traditional manner; read-alouds and audiobooks count. The only thing we ask is that books be "right for them," "at their level," etc., and even that's on the honor system.

The lack of restrictions makes it easier for the kids (fewer rules to follow) and for staff and volunteers (fewer rules to enforce). It also taps into that wonderful, literacy-promoted practice known as free voluntary reading, the premise of which is that if people are free to choose their own reading material, they will enjoy reading more, which encourages them to read more and become better at reading. My opinion is that any assigned reading should stay in school; it's summer, for crying out loud!

So, this story from one of my coworkers irked me. She lives in another library district, and she took her 10-year-old son to the library to sign up for summer reading. The library in question requires that members read a certain number of fiction and a certain number of nonfiction books. Moreover, it requires that members spin a wheel to determine which shelf they can choose a book from.

Mom's eyebrows went up, but Son enjoyed spinning the wheel. They went into the stacks and found the corresponding shelf, and Son chose a book. He carried it back to the librarian's desk for approval. Whereupon the librarian told him it didn't count, even though he'd picked it off the specified shelf, because it was a comic book.

Oooh, it makes me mad just writing about it! Graphic novels and comics are legitimate literature that exercises and promotes literacy. I could not believe that after complying with all those restrictions, the boy's chosen book still didn't fit this library's notion of what constitutes summer reading.

My coworker's planning to write to the library director. My hope is that the librarian who shot down the comic book was acting under misinformation. But at too many libraries—public libraries— comics and graphic novels are still the red-headed stepchildren of "real" books.

An Illusion of Free Reading

Lisa — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 11:28:28 -0700

Last week’s Washington Post article, “Question for the Ages: What Books When?” included some choice quotes from Jon Scieszka, newly minted U.S. National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature . “There is nothing sadder than making books only a school project,” Scieszka said. “Reluctant readers don’t want to be quizzed at the end of every chapter. They don’t want to feel like they are stupid.”

The article used this quote in the context of educators being “less willing to experiment with new or unusual books” in the face of No Child Left Behind. I’m sure there’s a lot to that, but to me, Scieszka's quote spoke less about the importance of teachers’ reading choices for their students and more about students’ own choices.

So, I was glad to see yesterday’s Chicago Tribune article, “In Praise of ‘Stupid Reading’: Author a Voice for Kids’ Choice”. It describes Scieszka’s support of all free-reading choices: comics, magazines, online stuff, audiobooks, nonfiction, ‘stupid’ books, and so on. People familiar with Scieszka’s work—his own writing or his literacy advocacy efforts—won’t find any surprises here. But it’s great that his message is being spread by the big-time media.

In the public library, from the school assignments I see, I feel like I’m seeing Scieszka’s message being taken half to heart. I see a lot of genre reading assignments for elementary school students; students are assigned to read a book of their choice that fits that month’s assigned genre. (This is in addition to books read as a class.) So, on the pro side, kids are responsible for choosing the book they read. On the con side, they’re still fulfilling requirements set by the teacher. It’s still, as Scieszka puts it, “only a school project.” It isn’t truly free reading.

The genre assignment that really kills me is “humorous fiction.” Nothing drains the funny from funny like analysis. Children will choose funny books all on their own (and God knows, there are plenty to choose from), so there’s something distinctly and distastefully ironic to me about requiring a child to read a funny book as part of a school assignment.

My hope is that in addition to group reading assignments and these genre reading assignments. But that seems like almost too much to hope, for the average kid. When so much energy is being spent on assigned reading, and “free” reading in the context of a school assignment, is there any left to simply enjoy?

Race: A History Beyond Black and White

Lisa — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 12:23:18 -0800

I fully intend to return to posting about fun adventure books, but the last couple weeks I’ve been sidetracked by serious, nonfiction books. One of these is Race: A History Beyond Black and White, by Marc Aronson (Atheneum, 2007), which I finished last night.

I have misgivings about the term “required reading”*, so let’s just say I think every American could benefit highly from reading this book. There’s no one alive whose life isn’t touched by issues of race, and too often negatively. Race illuminates the evolution of “race” as a concept humans invented to define and justify their ill treatment of others. While it doesn’t dwell on or offer clear-cut solutions to today’s problems, it gives readers a much deeper understanding of how things came to be.

Aronson traces the path of us v. them mentality in the Western World from primitive tribes through the present, with major stops for the Greek and Roman empires, the rise of Christianity, trans-Atlantic slave trade and immigration, and what he terms the “Age of Racism” (which includes, but is not limited to, American lynch mobs and the Holocaust). You see, “race” as we know it is a human invention of the past three hundred or so years, though it was millennia in the making. Race plainly explains how each new moment of enlightenment, that eliminated one kind of prejudice, gave birth to a newer, harsher form of prejudice.

Aronson writes in a formal but highly readable style. Many chapters open with a teen-friendly comparison of ancient political situations to contemporary teen issues. Snippets of his own family’s history and his admissions of racial prejudice lend a personal quality as well. I’m no race scholar, but it seemed to me that Aronson took a very even-handed approach to the sensitive subject matter. He includes extensive end notes and makes transparent those occasions when his personal opinion veers from those of “the experts.”

Though many parts of this book will make you angry, and many more will make you weep, Aronson ends Race on a hopeful note. “Our history of race leaves us uncertain,” he writes. “We should be proud of that. Our ancestors were less confused and left us the story of prejudice, slavery, and death I have described here.” In other words, as much as humans may be, by nature, prejudiced, if we push through our gut assumptions to question the way things are, we can improve our situation – the situation of all mankind.

Dovetailing neatly with Race is the other book I’m reading: Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present, by Harriet A. Washington (Doubleday, 2006). Washington uses history to explain why, today, many African Americans justifiably mistrust the medical system.

Reading Race has improved my understanding of the racial climate in America in the era Washington discusses (I’m only halfway through her book). Though it still seems unbelievable that humans could visit unspeakable horrors on other humans in the name of science, I now better understand that the white doctors doing these abhorrent things truly saw their black patients/subjects as less than human. This will never excuse what has happened, but viewing the events through a more contemporary lens helps explain how it did happen.

You can read the introduction to Race here. Marc Aronson also blogs for School Library Journal. His blog is Nonfiction Matters.

*The other day a middle school boy and his mom were in the library, and I overheard the boy say, “I hate reading books we’re forced to read.” Which, let’s face it, is the foundation of most schoolwork. Mom’s response is what really made me cringe, though. “Oh, you just hate reading, period.” Chicken and egg, anyone? And yes, I’m a Stephen Krashen fan. Free voluntary reading, baby!