I love this question! As a school librarian, I love supporting teens’ reading, but much to my cherubs’ eternal embarrassment, I don’t restrict that to my school library. I’ve been known to interject myself and a book in conversations in bookstores while there as an eavesdropping shopper.
A couple of years ago, I hiked Three Capes with my beautiful friend Jaqui, and it was on one of the killer, endless stair traverses that I realised that my insufferable habit of responding to every random topic of conversation with ‘hey, there’s this book you might like about that,’ might actually make me a half decent librarian.
Then came a whole entire subject on this, Readers Advisory, and I was borderline clapping my hands with joy, a whole lot more than I did during cataloguing…
Recently, a Year 8 student came up to me and asked me to help her choose between two books from two genres, and my answer was to take both! The best thing about libraries is the ability to select and borrow multiple books, and given the ability to read for pleasure needs ready access to books, to me, borrowing both was a no-brainer. As I said to the girl, our moods shift and our energies wane over the course of the day, so as an advocate for reading for feel, what we might want at the start of the day may be different for the end. Sometimes, you might have a book in your hand that you’re just not feeling, and so borrowing widely allows you to drop that one and move onto something else.
Her question, though, speaks of a question I’m asked all the time: can you help me find a good book?
Of course, ‘good’ is subjective, and one of my responses to this is what do you feel like in your reading at the moment? Do you want some comfort, do you want to feel challenged a bit, or get your heart racing, or do you want to see yourself on the page?
In terms of the more practical advice I give the teens I work with about finding a book to read for fun goes a little like this:
Browse the shelves. The librarians work hard at keeping the visual elements of the collection looking enticing and compelling. Look at the new books on display, at the front facing books or the themed display collections.
Pick up books. Yes. Hold them in your hands. Turn them over. Read the blurbs. Read the puffs (the endorsement quotes often on the front cover, or on the inside pages) to get a feel for the vibe of the book.
Recommend books to each other. Ask your friend what they’ve borrowed, and if they liked it, go find other books by the same author.
Take a couple of books and sit and read for a bit. Plonk on a beanbag or on a sofa. Read the first couple of pages or the first chapter. Not grabbing you? Move onto the next one.
Borrow the books. Students at my library can borrow up to ten, and I encourage them to borrow at least two, so they always have one in their locker or in their school bag.
Let me know how you go! I always throw this line at kids. I want to know what they’re reading, I want them to tell me about their responses to whatever books they’ve selected. This will help me to help them find more ‘good’ books on their next visit, and it also helps me suggest titles to other kids.
I’ve been sharing this advice with adult friends as well. It can be overwhelming, stepping into a library or a bookstore and facing an almost endless sea of titles, but having a strategy to choose books can help.
Let me know how you go!