Why Don't More Boys Read YA? By: Mike Mullin

The #YAlitchat on Twitter tonight was about men who write YA, but it quickly evolved into a discussion of why more male teens don't read young adult. It's almost impossible to have a nuanced discussion in 140 character snippets, so here's my take:

1) Boys and girls develop differently. Duh, you say, but did you know that the areas of the brain involved in language mature in girls SIX YEARS earlier than in boys on average? Yes, really. So when we feed boys and girls the same books and teach them the same way, what do you think is going to happen? That's right, boys get frustrated and turned off to reading. To be motivating, tasks must be both difficult and achievable. Reading that motivates the average girl to read more will cause the average boy to give up on reading, possibly forever.

2) Because girls' language skills mature faster, and they become more voracious readers (on average), the YA publishing industry caters to them. Don't believe me? Maybe literary agent Mary Kole's opinion will carry more weight. The key bit? "When I’ve gone on submission with boy YA and boy main characters in YA, I have literally heard from editors, 'Oh, we’ve already filled our slot.' That’s right. A single slot. Some houses usually do one or two boy-centric YA books per season and that’s it." I'm not saying this bias is wrong--it makes sense from a business standpoint. Heck, if I were working in a big six publishing house (or is it big five now, I can't keep up), I'd look for YA books geared to girls, too. I've got three cats to feed here, dontchaknow. But it is a vicious cycle. Teen guys don't read, so we don't publish books geared toward them, so there's even less for them to read . . . you get the idea.

3) What happens when the average teen guy doesn't like reading? The strongest force in the universe kicks in--the need to conform. I can't demonstrate the effect that has on guys any better than Shaun David Hutchinson already did. Here's his conclusion: "I was careful not to read anything that could get me ridiculed. It's possible that if I hadn't already loved reading as much as I did, that I would have given it up completely. I know guys who did."

4) Schools are contributing to the problem. (I'm generalizing here. No need to drive up from Floyd's Knob to yell at me, Mr. Hankins. I know not all classrooms are the same.) Many elementary classrooms have been doing student-selected reading for years, first in the guise of whole language, now via readers' workshop. This allows girls and boys to read books that fit their current interests and abilities, books they can feel successful reading, which in turn inspires them to read more. In my wife's 4th grade classroom this year, for example, there were kids reading Nate the Great and one reading Eragon. (While the 24 kids in her classroom fit the general rule that girls develop language faster than boys, they also showed that exceptions exist. The kid reading Eragon? A boy.)

In high school, most classrooms do teacher-selected reading. So what happens when the kid who read Nate the Great in 4th suddenly hits The Brothers Karamazov in 9th? I don't have to spell this out, do I? Saundra Mitchell pointed out this problem in the top tweet of the discussion tonight, "Girls already read tons of books written by men from men's POVs. It's called 'every English literature class ever.'" Girls are more likely to be ready for the classics than guys, regardless of who wrote them. Thus girls usually don't give up reading when forced to read stuff that might turn anyone off to it. Guys don't fare as well, despite the fact that most "classics" are written by and about men.

So, boys get turned off to reading. How do we solve the problem? I think publishing houses such as Tanglewood Press that are explicitly looking to publish great boy-centric books are part of the solution. As are high school teachers such as Mr. Hankins who are introducing more student-chosen reading into their curriculum. What do you think will help? Let me know in the comments, please.


http://mikemullin.blogspot.com/2011/06/why-dont-more-boys-read-ya.html

E-Readers Catch Younger Eyes and Go in Backpacks by: Julie Bosman

Something extraordinary happened after Eliana Litos received an e-reader for a Hanukkah gift in December.

“Some weeks I completely forgot about TV,” said Eliana, 11. “I went two weeks with only watching one show, or no shows at all. I was just reading every day.”

Ever since the holidays, publishers have noticed that some unusual titles have spiked in e-book sales. The “Chronicles of Narnia” series. “Hush, Hush.” The “Dork Diaries” series.

At HarperCollins, for example, e-books made up 25 percent of all young-adult sales in January, up from about 6 percent a year before — a boom in sales that quickly got the attention of publishers there.

“Adult fiction is hot, hot, hot, in e-books,” said Susan Katz, the president and publisher of HarperCollins Children’s Books. “And now it seems that teen fiction is getting to be hot, hot, hot.”

In their infancy e-readers were adopted by an older generation that valued the devices for their convenience, portability and, in many cases, simply for their ability to enlarge text to a more legible size. Appetite for e-book editions of best sellers and adult genre fiction — romance, mysteries, thrillers — has seemed almost bottomless.

But now that e-readers are cheaper and more plentiful, they have gone mass market, reaching consumers across age and demographic groups, and enticing some members of the younger generation to pick them up for the first time.

“The kids have taken over the e-readers,” said Rita Threadgill of Harrison, N.Y., whose 11-year-old daughter requested a Kindle for Christmas.

In 2010 young-adult e-books made up about 6 percent of the total digital sales for titles published by St. Martin’s Press, but so far in 2011, the number is up to 20 percent, a spokeswoman for the publisher said.

At HarperCollins Children’s Books e-book sales jumped in recent weeks for titles like “Pretty Little Liars,” a teenage series by Sara Shepard; “I Am Number Four,” a paranormal romance by Pittacus Lore; and “Before I Fall,” a novel by Lauren Oliver. (Some sales, publishers noted, are from older people crossing over to young-adult fiction.)

Jon Anderson, the publisher of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing, said some titles, like “Clockwork Angel” and books in the “Night World” series, nearly doubled their e-book sales in the four weeks after Christmas, compared with the four weeks before.

“We had an instant reaction — ‘Boy, a lot of kids got e-readers for Christmas,’ ” Mr. Anderson said, adding that another significant bump in sales occurred over the three-day weekend that included Martin Luther King’s Birthday. “If it follows the same trend as adults, it’s the start of an upward curve.”

Digital sales have typically represented only a small fraction of sales of middle-grade and young-adult books, a phenomenon usually explained partly by the observation that e-readers were too expensive for children and teenagers.

Another theory suggested that the members of the younger set who were first encouraged to read by the immensely popular Harry Potter books tended to prefer hardcover over any other edition, snapping up the books on the day of their release. And anecdotal evidence hinted that younger readers preferred print so that they could exchange books with their friends.

That scene may be slowly replaced by tweens and teenagers clustered in groups and reading their Nooks or Kindles together, wirelessly downloading new titles with the push of a button, studiously comparing the battery life of the devices and accessorizing them with Jonathan Adler and Kate Spade covers in hot pink, tangerine and lime green.

“The young adults and the teenagers are now the newest people who are beginning to experience e-readers,” said Matthew Shear, the publisher of St. Martin’s Press. “If they get hooked, it’s great stuff for the business.”

It is too soon to tell if younger people who have just picked up e-readers will stick to them in the long run, or grow bored and move on.

But Monica Vila, who runs the popular Web site The Online Mom and lectures frequently to parent groups about Internet safety, said that in recent months she had been bombarded with questions from parents about whether they should buy e-readers for their children.

In a speech last month at a parents’ association meeting in Westchester County, Ms. Vila asked for a show of hands to indicate how many parents had bought e-readers for their children as holiday gifts.

About half the hands in the room shot up, she recalled.

“Kids are drawn to the devices, and there’s a definite desire by parents to move books into this format,” Ms. Vila said. “Now you’re finding people who are saying: ‘Let’s use the platform. Let’s use it as a way for kids to learn.’ ”

Some teachers have been encouraging, too, telling their students that they are allowed to bring e-readers to school for leisure reading during homeroom and English class, for example.

“I didn’t buy it until I knew that the teachers in middle school were allowing kids to read their books on their e-readers,” said Amy Mauer-Litos, Eliana’s mother, adding, “I don’t know whether it’s the device itself that is appealing, or the easy access to the books, but I will tell you, we’ve had a lot of snow days lately, and 9 times out of 10, she’s in the family room reading her Nook.”

Some younger readers have been exploring the classics, thanks to the availability of older e-books that are in the public domain — and downloadable free.

After receiving a light gray Sony Reader from her grandparents for Christmas, Mia Garcia, a 12-year-old from Touchet, Wash., downloaded “Little Women,” a book she had not read before.

“It made me cry,” Mia said. “Then I read ‘Hunger Games,’ ” the best-selling dystopian novel, “and it also made me cry.”

Her 8-year-old brother, Tommy, was given an e-reader, too. “I like it because I have so many different books on it already,” he said, including “The Trouble Begins at 8,” a fast-paced biography of Mark Twain written for children in the middle grades.

Eryn Garcia, their mother, said the family used the local library — already stocked with more than 3,000 e-books — to download titles free, sparing her the usual chore of “lugging around 40 pounds of books.”

“There’s something I’m not sure is entirely replaceable about having a stack of inviting books, just waiting for your kids to grab,” Ms. Garcia said. “But I’m an avid believer that you need to find what excites your child about reading. So I’m all for it.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/05/books/05ebooks.html?_r=2&src=me&ref=books

Let Children Be the Judge of a Good Book by: Michael Morpurgo

When I was seven years old, my stepfather handed me a novel to read. It was a yellowing copy of Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens – a story which he had enjoyed as a child. He wasn’t trying to be nasty to me, but I’m afraid I didn’t like it at all. The print was small, it was far too long, and the language was complicated. My stepfather, by trying to hurry me towards good literature, succeeded only in putting me off Dickens for years.

As I judged entries for the first “Wicked Young Writers Award” – launched this year to develop writing talent in people aged between five and 25 in the UK, with the winners to be announced today – I was, from time to time, reminded of this problem. Well-meaning parents say to their children: you ought to read this, because it’s the sort of thing you should read at your age. They treat literature as a kind of medicine or tool. But the children pick up on it quickly: they resist it and they become fearful, as I did when confronted by Dickens.

The reverse, thankfully, is also true. For a child, the most encouraging thing in the world is to have a parent or grandparent, auntie or teacher, who really loves what they are reading to you. I was lucky. My mother was an actor, who read Wordsworth and Kipling and Edward Lear to me – and who read with passion. I didn’t understand the half of it, of course, but I learnt to love the music in the words.

When I began to teach, I tried to pass this on. Faced with 35 year-six pupils, I quickly discovered that the battle for their attention was won or lost in a matter of minutes. I remember one afternoon, in particular. The story I had chosen to read simply didn’t work. It was uninspiring and my pupils knew it. I droned on to the end, distracted by the fidgeting youngsters but also by a niggling thought that I could write something better myself.

I stayed awake all that night, writing my own story. In retrospect, the result was quite unremarkable. But I told it to them with conviction, eyeball to eyeball, absolutely believing every word I had written. They knew that this story meant a lot to me and could see I wasn’t afraid to show emotion. And in 10 minutes, I had every single one of them eating out of my hand.

Not everyone is born to write, but I am certain that, in part, I have my mother to thank for my career as a children’s writer. She sparked something in me that eventually caught fire – and before too long, I found that I needed to write.

The best teachers will know this about their own pupils: that there is a clear and direct correlation between those who love reading at a young age, and those who come to love writing. The worst teachers, sadly, don’t – and I do wish their training inculcated in them a love of reading for themselves. Then they would want to pass it on. If it’s simply part of a lesson, the children will know it to be phony. Teachers, like writers, have to mean it.

The winner for children aged five to seven in the “Wicked Young Writers Award” is Rhiannon Paton, who wrote a lovely tale called Ruby, the Raven Who Loved Raisins. The story is set in the Tower of London, where the ravens are fed “meat scraps”. But Ruby – who becomes good friends with the Queen – prefers raisins. It’s simple enough but, reading it, you can sense a terrific natural spark. A sense of colour and taste and sound that, though raw, gives life to her story. You are there, at the Tower of London, with Ruby.

It is up to teachers and parents to nurture Rhiannon’s talents and those of her peers. We won’t, despite the efforts of some educationalists, achieve this by patronising children or pushing them towards the “right sort” of literature.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/8136198/Let-children-be-the-judge-of-a-good-book.html

Classroom Literature Circles Expand Thought By: Alexandra R. Moses

The sixth graders sit with their desks pushed together, paperbacks scattered across the makeshift table. The conversation bounces from how a Revolutionary War-era character reacted to the death of his father to a personal story about how one of the students handled her sister getting sick while her parents weren't home.

Never mind the book; teacher Alisa Gladstone asks Courtney what she did about her sister. "Instead of screaming my head off, I called my mom and told her to come home, and then we had to go to the hospital," Courtney relates.

This is how Gladstone runs her literature circles at Blue Ridge Middle School, in Purcellville, Virginia. Students meet in small groups based on themes and start talking, with some prompting from Gladstone. If the discussion veers off course, well, that's part of the point: Literature circles are designed to help students connect with the material, whether it's characters in a novel about war or the antics of Amelia Bedelia.

Courtney's personal story was a response to a question: "Did you ever find yourself in a situation in which you had to make an adult decision?" The students were discussing the theme of childhood to maturity in the young-adult war novel My Brother Sam Is Dead, talking about how events in the book forced the main character to grow up.

"When they have to tie what they're reading to themselves, it becomes more real to them," Gladstone explains. "The students remember what happened in the book because they are able to relate to it, and it helps them grow."

Literature circles essentially are small group discussions about a book. But they're much more than chatter about the parts students liked (or didn't like) in the novel. Through literature circles, students learn how to think in terms of why, not just what. In Gladstone's class, it's not enough for a student to say that the death of the main character's father affected her. She has to explain howit affected her and what that means in relation to the theme they're discussing. The circles also teach interaction, as students take turns talking about and listening to various opinions on the same topic. Afterward, students write reflections and do projects based on the reading.

Name-Dropping:

A sixth-grader created an acrostic poem to illustrate some of the traits of the lead character in Johnny Tremainfor her literature-circle project.

Credit: Alexandra R. Moses

Teaching the Art of Conversation

Gladstone teaches the same students language arts and history, so she uses the circles to tie the subjects together, and she mixes academic levels. The students choose from one of three books heavy in the historical facts she wants them to know. In this case, they're studying the American Revolution, so she offers up My Brother Sam Is Dead, Johnny Tremain, and Fighting Ground. The students pick a book and then choose from one of five themes: childhood to maturity, friendship and loyalty, war, law, or family.

To talk about the first theme, the eight students involved came to the circle with three relevant facts or quotes from their books. A couple of students chose the statement by the title character fromJohnny Tremain that he is "a boy in time of peace and a man in time of war." Gladstone asks the group what it means to be a grown-up. "If you get into trouble, you don't just get grounded," Conor answers. "There's no one to tell you what to do."

The conversation veers quite a bit off course after that, as the students break into laughter and someone tells a story about a television commercial they saw recently. Gladstone, who says some amount of social diversion is necessary for their age, gently guides them back on topic by asking a student who hasn't spoken up yet to share her insights.

Gladstone says giving students a choice about which book to read, which theme to discuss, and, later, what type of project to create, gets the more reluctant readers interested in the books, because they can pick one that speaks to them. The circles have helped improve history test scores, she adds.

"They're able to retain the information a little bit better because they've lived through it with their characters," she states. "On the tests, they'll imagine Johnny Tremain, and they can think through some of those facts and about the people who were there."

The Learning Process

Just how a literature circle looks in practice depends on the students, the teacher, the subject matter, and the curriculum goals. Literature circles in Jennifer McFarland's first-grade class look and sound very different from Gladstone's sixth-grade class. The seven students at Oakland Terrace Elementary School, in Silver Spring, Maryland, just finished reading Good Work, Amelia Bedelia, one in a series of popular books about a maid who misunderstands her employer's directions, to comic effect.

McFarland keeps her circles structured -- giving each student a role, such as connection conductor, scene setter, and word sleuth -- to keep her six- and seven-year-olds on track. Only select students with better reading abilities take part.

"They're getting a full learning process," McFarland points out. "Literature circles hit on the main points that you need to read, think, discuss, and then reflect. If they remember those are the four things they need, they're going to excel in every subject and every grade."

McFarland wants her students to learn what it means to be professional, so they have guidelines. To take a turn speaking, students must say what their role is and why they are speaking, and if someone wants to comment, he or she must say "I agree" or "I disagree because . . . "

In handouts on each role, McFarland has prompts to get the students thinking more deeply about the reading. The connection conductor, for instance, needs to bring examples of real-life connections to the story. McFarland notes that getting them to look for additional meaning in what they read for the literature circle also helps them think beyond simple facts in other subjects as well.

"I am the word sleuth, and I would like to go next because I have a lot of words to share," announces Carl. He has brought a list of words with the page they appear on in the book and their definitions. Today's words include dinner, serve, and table. McFarland uses a marker to copy the words and definitions onto an oversized piece of paper. The students briefly discuss his definition of table as a place to eat, and they finally agree that the definition isn't specific enough. Later, the students will take a quiz on the words.

McFarland uses the circle to meet her district's writing-curriculum goals on persuasive writing andletter writing. For part of their project, the students must write a persuasive letter to Amelia Bedelia's employers, telling them how to be more specific with their hapless maid. They also write reflection journals about the reading and the discussions.

Though Gladstone and McFarland's methods differ, they share the same goal: to encourage a love of reading. McFarland says the practice of digging deeper into the books teaches her students to stop and think about how they know something to be true.

"I love to see where the children's minds go when they're reading the book," McFarland declares. "They're going into this whole extra level of understanding."

http://www.edutopia.org/literature-circles-class-book-discussion

Teen Librarian Says It's About Individual Choice by: Andrew Brophy

For Nicole Scherer, the First Amendment applies to teenagers as well.

"The only person who has the right to tell you what you can or cannot read is your parent or you," Scherer, head of Teen Services at the Fairfield Public Library and Fairfield Woods Branch Library, said Wednesday afternoon. "You make the choice for yourself or your own children. You don't make the choice for someone else's family."

Very few patrons at the Fairfield Public Library ever try to ban a book - the last time was about four years ago when a father's elementary school daughter picked out a book written for teenagers, Scherer said.

Regina Krieger, a library media specialist at Fairfield Ludlowe High School, said she's not aware of an attempted book ban at Ludlowe High's library since the high school opened about seven years ago, and Judy Savage, a library media specialist at Fairfield Warde High School, said no one has attempted to ban a book from Warde High's library in the recent past.

"In the 11 years I've been here, this is my twelfth, it has never been an issue," Savage said. "We have fine librarians who are qualified to select materials intelligently, and there's a lot of trust in that."

Scherer, 31, said Fairfield also doesn't see challenges to books because most parents are very engaged in what their children are doing and keep a watchful eye on what they're reading, which is how she said it's supposed to be.

But that's not the case in other parts of the country, Scherer said. "There are always book challenges going on somewhere in the country," she said.

Some of those challenged books are featured in Fairfield Library's Teen Room - either the actual book with caution tape around it or a reproduction of the book's cover with a line through it and reasons why people want it banned.

"The reason we do this display in the teen room at both libraries and not in the general area is because, without fail, most of the books on the top 10 will be books taught in high school," Scherer said. "The books that people go after are curriculum books and popular fiction for young adults."

"People certainly protest books by firebrand political figures or books that may be sexually explicit...but it's the idea that the First Amendment doesn't apply to people under the age of 18."

Scherer said teenagers are at a time in their lives when they're starting to get a sense of themselves and their preferences, and being told they're not allowed to do something hits home, especially when someone other than their parents is saying that. She said teenagers across the country also like to see themselves or their circumstances portrayed in literature because it comforts and supports them, and not all teens live in idyllic environments.

Scherer added that the world becomes more challenging as children get older, and a safe way to access challenging issues is through literature. "It's a way to get into the issue while staying removed from it," she said.

The types of books that people want banned from public or school libraries aren't trashy novels - most are well-reviewed books that include profanity; descriptions of nudity, sex and drug use; and themes that the would-be book banners believe are anti-family, racist or promote homosexuality, Scherer said.

The number-one challenged book last year was "And Tango Makes Three," which is about two penguins who come across an abandoned penguin egg and decide to raise the baby penguin that hatches from it. The problem, in some people's eyes, is that because both penguins are males, the book is promoting homosexuality, Scherer said.

"It couldn't be a more sweet book, and it's something that really happened," Scherer said, adding that both male penguins, after they raised the offspring, went off with female penguins.

"In Missouri, right now, there is a big push to ban that book and a book called 'Speak,' which is a hallmark of young adult literature," Scherer said.

"Speak," which is about date rape, is being challenged on the claim it's pornographic, Scherer said.

In 2009, the American Library Association reported 400 challenges to books around the country, though the ALA believes only one in five or 10 challenges are reported to its Office of Intellectual Freedom, Scherer said. If that number is accurate, the actual number of challenges ranges from 2,000 to 4,000. "The ones that are challenged are not successful because people can mobilize around protecting them. It's that tricky five to 10 that don't get reported," she said.

All book challenges are local and don't lead to bans outside the communities where the challenges, if successful, take place, Scherer said.

The most popular book in the Fairfield Public Library right now is "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo," an adult book that includes a lot of brutality. The library owns 30 copies of the book and has 65 "holds" on it, Scherer said.

But "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" isn't among books people are trying to ban because it's aimed at adults, while "Speak" was written for teenagers, Scherer said. "There is definitely a double standard," she said.

The Fairfield Public Library has a system set up when someone wants a book banned from the library - first, the potential book-banner has to fill out a form which is then reviewed by the town librarian and the library's board of trustees, who jointly decide whether or not to remove the book from the library's circulation, Scherer said.

But it hasn't gotten that far since Scherer joined the library about five years ago.

Scherer said the father four years ago withdrew his request after Scherer talked to him and explained that his 11-year-old daughter had found the book on her own and hadn't asked Scherer if she thought the book was right for her. Scherer said she would never tell someone they can't check out a book, but would say it's not appropriate for her age if the child asks.

Scherer declined to identify the book the father objected to, saying she didn't want a lot of people to request it based on that objection, but added, "The book remains in our circulation and remains popular here."

The top 10 challenged books, in no particular order, are: "TTYL," "And Tango Makes Three," "The Perks of Being a Wallflower," "To Kill a Mockingbird," "Twilight," "The Catcher in the Rye," "My Sister's Keeper," "The Earth, My Butt and Other Big Round Things," The Chocolate War," and "The Color Purple."

The ALA's motto for Banned Books Week this year is, "Think for Yourself and Let Others do the Same."

Brophy, Andrew. "Teen Librarian Says It's About Individual Choices." Fairfield Patch 29 Sept. 2010: n. pag. Web. 10 Oct 2010.

http://fairfield.patch.com/articles/teen-librarian-says-its-about-individual-choices

A New Assignment: Pick Books You Like by Motoko Rich

JONESBORO, Ga. — For years Lorrie McNeill loved teaching “To Kill a Mockingbird,” the Harper Lee classic that many Americans regard as a literary rite of passage.

But last fall, for the first time in 15 years, Ms. McNeill, 42

, did not assign “Mockingbird” — or any novel. Instead she turned over all the decisions about which books to read to the students in her seventh- and eighth-grade English classes at Jonesboro Middle School in this south Atlanta suburb.

Among their choices: James Patterson‘s adrenaline-fueled “Maximum Ride” books, plenty of young-adult chick-lit novels and even the “Captain Underpants” series of comic-book-style novels.

But then there were students like Jennae Arnold, a soft-spoken eighth grader who picked challenging titles like “A Lesson Before Dying” by Ernest J. Gaines and “The Bluest Eye” by Toni Morrison, of which she wrote, partly in text-message speak: “I woul

d have N3V3R thought of or about something like that on my own.”

The approach Ms. McNeill uses, in which students choose their own books, discuss them individually with their teacher and one another, and keep detailed journals about their reading, is part of a movement to revolutionize the way literature is taught in America’s schools. While there is no clear consensus among English teachers, variations on the approach, known as reading workshop, are catching on.

In New York City many public and private elementary schools and some middle schools already employ versions of reading workshop. Starting this fall, the school district in Chappaqua, N.Y., is setting aside 40 minutes every other day for all sixth, seventh and eighth graders to read books of their own choosing.

In September students in Seattle’s public middle schools will also begin choosing most of their own books. And in Chicago the public school district has had a pilot program in place since 2006 in 31 of its 483 elementary schools to give students in grades 6, 7 and 8 more control over what they read. Chicago officials will consider whether to expand the program once they review its results.

None of those places, however, are going as far as Ms. Mc

Neill.

In the method familiar to generations of students, an entire class reads a novel — often a classic — together to draw out the themes and study literary craft. That tradition, proponents say, builds a shared literary culture among students, exposes all readers to works of quality and complexity and is the best way to prepare students for standardized tests.

But fans of the reading workshop say that ass

igning books leaves many children bored or unable to understand the texts. Letting students choose their own books, they say, can help to build a lifelong love of reading.

“I feel like almost every kid in my classroom is engaged in a novel that they’re actually interacting with,” Ms. McNeill said, several months into her experiment. “Whereas when I do ‘To Kill a Mockingbird,” I know that I have some kids that just don’t get into it.”

Critics of the approach say that reading as a group generally leads to more meaningful insights, and they question whether teachers can really keep up with a roomful of children reading different books. Even more important, they say, is the loss of a co

mmon body of knowledge based on the literary classics — often difficult books that children are unlikely to choose for themselves.

“What child is going to pick up ‘Moby-Dick’?” said Diane Ravitch, a professor of education at New York University who was assistant education secretary under President George H. W. Bush. “Kids will pick things that are trendy and popular. But that’s what you should do in your free time.”

Indeed, some school districts are moving in the opposite direction. Boston is developing a core curriculum that will designate specific books for si

xth grade and is considering assigned texts for each grade through the 12th.

Joan Dabrowski, director of literacy for Boston’s public schools, said teachers would still be urged to give students some choices. Many schools in fact ta

ke that combination approach, dictating some titles while letting students select others.

Even some previously staunch advocates of a rigid core curriculum have moderated their views. “I actually used to be a real hard-line, great-books, high-culture kind of person who would want to stick to Dickens,” said Mark Bauerlein, professor of English at Emory University and the author of “The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future.” But now, in the age of Game Boys andFacebook, “I think if they read a lot of Conan novels or Hardy Boys or Harry Potter or whatever, that’s good,” he said. “We just need to preserve book habits among the kids as much as we possibly can.”

READ MORE: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/30/books/30reading.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1

10 Ways to Celebrate Banned Books Week by: AMANDA CHRISTY BROWN AND HOLLY EPSTEIN OJALVO

Held annually during the last week of September, Banned Books Weekhighlights the benefits of intellectual freedom and draws attention to the harms of censorship by spotlighting actual or attempted banning of books across the United States, including books commonly taught in secondary schools.

Here are ideas for celebrating Banned Books Week –- with your students, your children and anyone who believes in having “the freedom to read.”

1. Classic Challenges: Books commonly taught in secondary schools show up again and again on the American Library Association’s most frequently challenged list. Why are some books challenged year after year? Find out why and then “adopt” a banned book like “The Catcher in the Rye” or “To Kill a Mockingbird” by investigating its history of challenges. (For example, a site search for “Huckleberry Finn” on nytimes.com reveals the 1885 editorial “Trashy and Vicious,” republished from The Springfield Republican, on the Concord Library’s ban of the book. You’ll also find a1902 letter from Mark Twain on the Omaha Public Library’s ban.) Then promote a “read-in” of one or more challenged or banned books in your school library.

2. Don’t Read This!: Scan this list. What do these books have in common? Are you surprised to see that they are the Top 100 Banned/Challenged Books for 2000-2009? Use Anna Quindlen’s Op-Ed from 1994 as the model for an essay about personal experiences reading banned books and thoughts about book banning in general. We also invite you to answer our Student Opinion question, “Are There Books That Should Be Banned From Your School Library?”
3. Big Name Bans: Did you know that “Harry Potter” topped the library association’s list of most challenged books in the year 2000? Other recent frequently challenged books include the “Twilight” series and “The Perks of Being a Wallflower.” Learn more about recent challenges and then create posters to promote intellectual freedom using some of the titles. One idea: Create a collage of book jackets of some of the most famous banned books. Another: Create a map of challenges, to demonstrate that book bans and challenges are not isolated phenomena, even in the United States. Ask to hang the posters in the school or local library.
4. Join the Club: Create book clubs around banned books. To investigate titles for your club to read, you might use the Books section, including the drop-down menus for finding book reviews and coverage of featured authors. Then hold book “pitches” and form club reading schedules. As you read, respond to the texts, and then execute a final project, either individually or as a group.
5. Blog All About It: Read this article featuring a New Jersey family that blogs together about books and encourages support of Banned Books Week. Choose a banned title to read as a family. Discuss it over dinner and/or online together. Include far-flung extended family by blogging or writing literary letters.
6. ‘Speak’ or Not?: This week, a university professor, Wesley Scroggins,attacked Laurie Halse Anderson’s “Speak” as “soft pornography” in The Springfield News-Leader of Missouri. Ms. Halse Anderson responded on her blog, as did the teacher and blogger Donalyn Miller on The Book Whisperer Blog. Read the blog posts and discuss both positions. What is “soft pornography”? Should teenagers, as novelist and Harvard student Isabel Kaplan argues in her Huffington Post post, read books with such content? Adapt this 2006 lesson on a book ban in the Miami-Dade school system to study the controversy and write letters to The News-Leader expressing your opinion about the issues raised in the debate. Decide whether or not you want to read “Speak” yourself.
7. Librarians for Liberty: Have you ever been caught reading under the covers? So was the late Judith Krug, the librarian who created Banned Books Week –- and her mother’s reaction to what she was reading taught her a lesson about having the freedom to read that later translated into her passion for the First Amendment and intellectual freedom. Learn more about Ms. Krug and consider the role of libraries in our democracy. What are the implications of book banning? What role do librarians and libraries play – even in the digital age –- in protecting intellectual freedom? Work with school or local librarians to plan a Banned Books Week event -– perhaps a read-a-thon or book festival, featuring banned books, with proceeds to benefit the library. Be sure to thank your librarians for the important work they do.
8. Protective Policies: See how librarians at the Brooklyn Public Libraryhandle challenges to books and other creative works in their collection, and read some sample requests for reconsideration and responses. Consider the fact that different people find different books “detestable,” and that in the name of freedom the Brooklyn library stocks books that offend or disturb many people, like “Mein Kampf.” Interview your local or school librarian about the library’s policies and guidelines about what books to stock and how to handle challenges. Then draft a policy that takes into consideration First Amendment freedoms and tolerance for a range of beliefs and values.
9. Spotlight Censorship: Read about a 2008 traveling exhibition called “Censorship in Public Schools and Libraries,” sponsored by the Long Island Coalition Against Censorship. Research issues of censorship in your area or on a certain theme (like journalism) and build an exhibit of artifacts to represent the history you discover. Write exhibition tags explaining each piece, and invite the community to visit. The American Library Association offers additional display ideas to mark Banned Books Week.
10. Go Global: The Times often covers books and other works that have been censored internationally, like in China and Iraq (as well as, occasionally, by the United States). Read about the role of books in other countries and the implications of book banning abroad and explore Web sites commonly blocked in countries like China and Saudi Arabia. Consider why these governments want to block the content in question, and how national history, culture and politics come into play during such episodes. What does a country’s censorship history tell us about what its government and citizens value? Create a timeline or narrative history of one country’s relationship with censorship, including, if possible, interviews with people who have direct experience.

http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/23/10-ways-to-celebrate-banned-books-week/