More Than Money Can Buy

First the good news. The average price of most children’s and young adult books hasn’t gone up. In fact, it’s slightly declined. Now the bad news. Adult titles—especially hardcover and paperback nonfiction—have shot up significantly. That increase makes it especially hard on high school librarians and public librarians who are creating young adult collections.

But today’s librarians face an even bigger challenge.

In October 1978, when SLJ started tracking those figures, we wanted to help librarians develop sufficient budgets and give them enough ammunition to fight for more funds. That hasn’t changed. Back then, there were plenty of demands on school library budgets besides books—think audio and video. It’s no different now—just add technology to the mix.

What is different is what’s being published. Now there’s so much more to offer that you can guarantee there’s a book out there to interest each and every one of your readers, reluctant or not.

If you don’t believe me, consider the books we reviewed in this issue alone.

Just when you thought fantasy had gone as far as possible, along comes Brian Selznick’s The Invention of Hugo Cabret (Scholastic), an innovative blend of brilliant illustrations and an irresistible story—as well as two other absolutely terrific fantasy novels.

Need a strong dose of reality? This month’s reviews feature four picture books that tackle one of the toughest topics: death (of a mother, a sibling, a friend, and a pet). There are also novels that embrace social issues, like abusive parents. In nonfiction, there are important books on the perilous state of the Earth’s ecology, such as Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth (Viking). If that isn’t a book that kids need to read, I don’t know what is.

If you’re faced with some unwilling readers (and who isn’t?), check out Kathleen Baxter’s latest Nonfiction Booktalker column, “Gross Them Out,” on page 38. Every librarian could use a copy of Jeff Szpirglas’s Gross Universe: Your Guide to All Disgusting Things Under the Sun (Maple Tree, 2006) to wow the after-school crowd.

Publishers are doing their job. Now it’s our turn. As Trev Jones, SLJ’s book review editor, put it: “There’s a need for variety and diversity—in terms of what children can appreciate and understand, in their reading abilities, and in their levels of sophistication and maturity. Libraries must cover all the bases if they’re going to serve all of their children—and to do so, they must fight for funding.”

It’s time to persuade parents and teachers, principals and directors, school boards and boards of trustees to reach for their wallets. Tell them about the wealth of resources nearly within our grasp—great historical fiction about the Civil War, biographies of sports legends, and books about dinosaur poop. Let them know that this is what’s required to raise a nation of learners, one book, one reader at a time.

bkenney@reedbusiness.com