What Are They Reading for Fun?
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compiled by Marlene Charnizon -- School Library Journal, 04/30/2009
Novels about immigrant life, manga, and a book of poetry.
Pam Gardow, Memorial High School, Eau Claire, WI:
Our graphic novels collection gets tons of use. Some favorites right now are Tito Kubo’s “Bleach,” Tsugumi Ohba’s “Death Note,” and Masashi Kishimoto’s “Naruto” (all Viz Media). For books with powerful emotional punch, students are reading Elizabeth Scott’s Living Dead Girl (S & S, 2008), Julie Schumacher’s Black Box (Delacorte, 2008), Melina Marchetta’s Jellicoe Road (HarperTeen, 2008), Sarah Zarr’s Sweethearts (Little Brown, 2008), and anything by Ellen Hopkins. Jonathan Friesen’s Jerk, California (Penguin, 2008) about a teen with Tourette’s syndrome, is also doing well.
After their multiple readings of Stephenie Meyer’s “Twilight” (Little, Brown), our teens are gobbling up Cassandra Clare’s “The Mortal Instruments” books (S & S) as well as P.C. Cast and Kristin Cast’s “The House of Night” series (St. Martin’s). Alison Goodman’s Eon: Dragoneye Reborn (Viking, 2008) is also a hot commodity. Multiple copies of Suzanne Collins’s The Hunger Games (Scholastic, 2008) and Kristin Cashore’s Graceling (Harcourt, 2008) are in constant circulation. And if I don’t want outraged students in my office, I had better have the new Jodi Picoult books as soon as they hit bookstore shelves. Finally, with Neil Gaiman living 30 miles away, I can’t keep up with the holds for The Graveyard Book (HarperCollins, 2008).
Richard Winters, Wasco High School, CA:
Eighty-five percent of our population is Hispanic, and most of the students are migrants and the children of fieldworkers. We have struggled for years to encourage reading for fun. This year the circulation of books for pleasure reading has increased greatly. Our excellent English department has been working hard over the past couple of years to share their love of literature and to bring students to the library.
Beatrice Sparks’s books (Avon) about the problems teenagers face; Gary Soto’s Buried Onions (Harcourt, 1997), about Hispanics in San Joaquin Valley; Luis J. Rodriguez’s Always Running: La Vida Loca: Gang Days in L.A. (Curbstone, 1993); Tana Reiff’s Hungry No More and Old Ways, New Ways (Topeka); Melissa de la Cruz’s Fresh Off the Boat (HarperCollins, 2005); and Matt de la Peña’s Mexican WhiteBoy (Delacorte, 2008) are all getting avid attention. So, too, is Stephenie Meyer (Little, Brown), Holly Black’s Valiant: A Modern Tale of Faerie (S & S, 2005) et al, and Matt Christopher.
June H. Keuhn, Corning East High School, NY:
Our school has 850 students. The most-read books are the ones that are recommended by favorite teachers or by peers, and students can request books for the library. They usually let me know when a new series title comes out. All of the volumes we own by Ellen Hopkins are constantly circulating. Books in our manga collection, including Bisco Hatori’s “Ouran High School Host Club” and “Millennium Snow” series (all Viz Media) are read and reread. Both the print and the Playaway versions of Alison Goodman’s Eon: Dragoneye Reborn are going out. A teacher recently recommended Dave Pelzer’s A Child Called “It” (Health Communications, 1995) and it has been checked out ever since, passing quickly from hand to hand.
Our library has a new-books cart of about 50 titles. Pleasure reading statistics have doubled since 2005, I think in part because of the cart and a bigger, more modern fiction section. Recent acquisitions include Slipping by Cathleen Davitt Bell (Bloomsbury, 2008), Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson (Viking, 2009), Graceling by Kristin Cashore (Harcourt, 2008), Ted Dekker’s Infidel–Graphic Novel (Thomas Nelson, 2008), and Paint Me Like I Am: Teen Poems from Writers Corps (HarperTempest, 2003).
