What Are They Reading for Fun?
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Compiled by Marlene Charnizon -- School Library Journal, 01/31/2008
In this semimonthly column we ask librarians and teachers—and maybe even kids—to tell us which titles are hot in their library. Here are some of the first responses.
Herman Sutter, St. Agnes Academy, Houston:
Reading for pleasure is on the rise. The fiction works that are flying off the shelves are: Stephenie Meyer’s "Twilight" series (Little, Brown), Ann Brashares's "Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants" books (Delacorte), and Melissa De la Cruz’s "Blue Bloods" novels (Hyperion), as well as Libba Bray’s A Great and Terrible Beauty (Delacorte, 2003) and Jack Gantos’s Hole in My Life (Farrar, 2002). They are also checking out nonfiction titles, David Von Drehle's Triangle: The Fire That Changed America (Atlantic Monthly, 2003), Eric Larson’s The Devil in the White City (Random, 2003) and Thunderstruck (Crown, 2006), and Philip Short’s Pol Pot: Anatomy of a Nightmare (Holt, 2006).
Vicki Reutter, Cazenovia High School, NY:
They want everything by Meg Cabot. They have an insatiable appetite for manga. Waiting lists are lengthy for Scott Westerfeld's Uglies (S & S, 2005) and Stephenie Meyer's Twilight (Little, Brown, 2005) and their sequels. Students know the publication dates for upcoming volumes and leave Post-it notes to remind me. A contingent of readers has just discovered Ellen Hopkins's edgy novels, such as Impulse and Glass (both S & S, 2007). While they wait for a copy, they are open to trying Barry Lyga's The Astonishing Adventures of Fan Boy and Goth Girl (Houghton, 2006) and Ned Vizzini's It's Kind of a Funny Story (Hyperion, 2006).
Sue Giffard, Ethical Culture Fieldston School, New York City:
Cathy Cassidy’s novels Dizzy (2004), Indigo Blue (2005), and Scarlett (2006, all Viking) have really taken off with my fourth-grade girls as well as Annie Bryant’s “Beacon Street Girls” series (B’tween). The publication of Jerry Spinelli’s Love, Stargirl (2007) has led to serious interest in Stargirl (2000, both Knopf) among fifth graders. If I had eight copies there would still be a waiting list. The third graders are reading their way through Laurie Friedman’s “Mallory” books (Carolrhoda). “Nancy Drew” is enjoying a resurgence among girls who’ve seen the movie. So what about all those boy readers? Well, some of them, along with the girls, are enjoying Brian Selznick's The Invention of Hugo Cabret (Scholastic, 2007) and stop me excitedly in the hallway to tell me about it.
