Opinion
Reading & Literacy Opinion

Buy the Book

By Thomas Washington — November 01, 2003 6 min read
  • Save to favorites
  • Print
Librarians find reading a tough sell for today’s teens.

The Follett library software system is the literary conscience of St. Francis High School. It reports on overdue books, checkout statistics, and online catalog search records. This morning, my circulation numbers convince me that, as the school’s custodian of books and information, my job is on the line.

Approximately 700 students attend St. Francis in Wheaton, Illinois; every one of them is logged into the library database on the first day of school. During the 2002-03 academic year, my report says, I checked out 790 books. Of those, faculty members accounted for one-third. Over the course of the year, students borrowed approximately 400 books for what appeared to be class-related projects on, among other topics, the Holocaust, Robert Oppenheimer, Herbert Hoover, St. Teresa, Prozac, the Battle of Gettysburg, and UFOs. They returned most of these within a week, and sometimes within one day. The remaining 150 books included texts I had placed on reserve for student projects. Besides a few Robert Jordan books, The Lord of the Rings trilogy, and Shizuko’s Daughter, I didn’t come across any titles that I could place under the category of “personal reading.”

Some mitigating circumstances work in my favor. The neighboring public libraries abound with resources. Students might visit those sites with their families more than I realize. Students also love to shop, so Borders and Amazon.com might be filling the gap. I was new to the job last year, so I’m only starting to develop a following among students. Most are bookworms, loners, and presumed weirdos who know me from my previous years as an English teacher, loyal disciples who listened to my sermons on the importance of reading without putting their heads down or yawning. They number no more than 10.

The time factor also looms large. No one has any these days, especially kids. I have a mental image of a teenager sitting in the backseat of the family car, like a rock star chauffeured in a stretch limousine on the way to the next gig: soccer practice, band, choir, judo, yoga, the part-time cineplex job, track, community service, the ACT prep center, counseling, detentions, student government, football, and baseball. And outside the limousine, adult groupies pound on the windshield for a piece of the kid’s undivided attention: coaches, counselors, moderators, directors, teachers, parents, and employers.

If the simple act of leisure reading is supposed to figure into our overall success in educating young minds, then I need a new game plan.

For starters, I’ve been trying to organize a student book club. Last year, I gave potential converts assorted lists from Mortimer Jerome Adler’s Great Books of the Western World, the American Library Association’s Outstanding Books for the CollegeBound and Lifelong Learners, and young adult literature recommendations from the ALA. Three students showed up for our first discussion of Robert Cormier’s I Am the Cheese.

“You have to go out there and get them. Make them join,” one administrator told me after I reported the low turnout for our first meeting. But forcing kids to read is exactly what I was trying to flee from in my previous role as an English teacher. Watching them suffer through the prescribed curriculum of books such as Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart or Pearl S. Buck’s The Good Earth was enough to turn anyone’s stomach. Nor did I want to pose as a salesman for material I had no faith in. For that, I could have landed a job in advertising and quadrupled my income.

Surely a flair for salesmanship factors into the success rate of the English teacher (and librarian).

Surely a flair for salesmanship factors into the success rate of the English teacher (and librarian). The key is a good product line (No Shakespeare until senior year, and out with The Scarlet Letter already!) and an even sales floor approach, similar to the one I learned as a wine seller on Chicago’s North Shore.

Leading kids to books, I think, should work more on the level of gentle invitation, as one would summon dinner guests into the dining room. It’s best to rig the school library with display props and lure students in gradually. I use Ms. Miller’s sophomore English class as test bait. On Fridays, she has open reading period, so she sends her students down three at a time to pick over the collection.

They’re tough customers. These students already have cars, Game Boys, electric guitars, cell phones, and the Internet, not to mention seasonal trips to Colorado and Cancun. I feel like my 12-year-old self, trying to sell my Hot Wheels collection to the kid brother of my best friend. When I finally have them at the point of potential sale with a young adult fiction book, say Will Hobb’s Far North, they let loose a grin, as though I’m trying to pull something over on them.

“You really don’t think I have time for this, do you, Mr. Washington?” they ask. And then they skip out with a Marilyn Monroe picture book or something on the solar system. Half in earnest, I once told a sophomore I would pay him $5 to read Ironman. Written by Chris Crutcher, the story of a teenage athlete placed in an anger-management class was perfectly suited to the student’s recalcitrant nature. This was a book that I thought could change him forever, or at least open his eyes. He told me his mother would give him $10 for doing nothing.

Still, my efforts are not always a wash. Sometimes I hit the mark with return customers, mostly girls who long ago learned the joys of reading in the home.

Still, my efforts are not always a wash. Sometimes I hit the mark with return customers.

One week I printed out Percy Bysshe Shelley’s “To a Skylark” from our online poetry database and placed copies on the library desks before school. As the day progressed, I watched for any reactions, a bit like touching the toes of a paralyzed patient for any feeling. Soon enough, I got lost in the more mundane activities of the job—reloading the printer, collecting dimes for the copier, and solving the constant electronic trouble shooting so I’m not sure whether anyone’s day was lifted by Shelley’s artistry.

I also displayed a “book of the month” on the reference desk. I included a glowing quote that plucked a gem from the story line in the same way those enticing wine-shop descriptions of plum, dark currant, and cherry lead customers to slap down their credit cards.

My fall frontrunner was My Dog Skip, by Willie Morris. Here is the opening paragraph:

I came across a photograph of him not long ago, his black face with the long snout sniffing at something in the air, his tail straight and pointing, his eyes flashing in some momentary excitement. Looking at a faded photograph taken more than forty years before, even as a grown man, I would still admit I missed him.

With an invitation like this, I can’t imagine a student putting Morris’ book down. But they do. Eventually, a sophomore girl checked out the book. I didn’t get it back for 90 days. She said she never got around to reading it, but she liked the cover because it “showed the same boy who was in the movie version.”

Thomas Washington is a librarian at St. Francis High School in Wheaton, Illinois.

Related Tags:

Events

Jobs Virtual Career Fair for Teachers and K-12 Staff
Find teaching jobs and other jobs in K-12 education at the EdWeek Top School Jobs virtual career fair.
Ed-Tech Policy Webinar Artificial Intelligence in Practice: Building a Roadmap for AI Use in Schools
AI in education: game-changer or classroom chaos? Join our webinar & learn how to navigate this evolving tech responsibly.
Education Webinar Developing and Executing Impactful Research Campaigns to Fuel Your Ed Marketing Strategy 
Develop impactful research campaigns to fuel your marketing. Join the EdWeek Research Center for a webinar with actionable take-aways for companies who sell to K-12 districts.

EdWeek Top School Jobs

Teacher Jobs
Search over ten thousand teaching jobs nationwide — elementary, middle, high school and more.
View Jobs
Principal Jobs
Find hundreds of jobs for principals, assistant principals, and other school leadership roles.
View Jobs
Administrator Jobs
Over a thousand district-level jobs: superintendents, directors, more.
View Jobs
Support Staff Jobs
Search thousands of jobs, from paraprofessionals to counselors and more.
View Jobs

Read Next

Reading & Literacy Applying the 'Science of Reading': 3 State Leaders on Putting Policy Into Practice
Officials discussed how their states have attempted a multifaceted approach to reading improvement.
4 min read
Katie Jenner, Indiana Secretary of Education, speaks during a presentation of the proposed state spending plan during an announcement in Indianapolis on Jan. 4, 2023.
Indiana Secretary of Education Katie Jenner speaks about a proposed state spending plan on Jan. 4, 2023, in Indianapolis. Indiana tracks students' 3rd grade reading progress and the tools and supports districts are deploying.
Michael Conroy/AP
Reading & Literacy How One District Moved to a 'Knowledge-Building' Curriculum: 3 Key Takeaways
Don't expect teachers to be experts in every subject, and make sure to address comprehension strategies, too, say district leaders.
4 min read
First grade students illustrate a story they wrote together in Megan Gose’s classroom at Moorsbridge Elementary School in Portage, Mich., on Nov. 29, 2023.
First grade students illustrate a story they wrote together in Megan Gose’s classroom at Moorsbridge Elementary School in Portage, Mich., on Nov. 29, 2023.
Emily Elconin for Education Week
This content is provided by our sponsor. It is not written by and does not necessarily reflect the views of Education Week's editorial staff.
Sponsor
Reading & Literacy Quiz
Quiz Yourself: How Much Do You Know About Foundational Reading Skills?
Answer 9 questions about foundational reading skills.
Content provided by WordFlight
Reading & Literacy Opinion How to Help Students With Their Writing. 4 Educators Share Their Secrets
In many classrooms, students are handcuffed by restrictive templates for assignments instead of getting to practice how to create.
13 min read
Images shows colorful speech bubbles that say "Q," "&," and "A."
iStock/Getty