What Are They Reading for Fun?
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Compiled by Marlene Charnizon -- School Library Journal, 4/24/2008 2:00:00 PM
This month it's contemporary classics in poetry, but there are also signs of spring in sports and nature reading choices.
Stephanie Farnlacher, Trace Crossings Elementary School, Hoover, AL:
My students don’t often look for poetry, but some booktalking of Sharon Creech’s Love That Dog (HarperCollins, 2001) and Karen Hesse’s Out of the Dust (Scholastic, 1997) has generated waiting lists. They enjoyed comparing Ernest L. Thayer’s Casey at the Bat, illustrated by Christopher Bing (Handprint, 2000), with Dan Gutman’s Casey Back at Bat, illustrated by Steve Johnson and Lou Fancher (HarperCollins, 2007). To celebrate spring, the younger kids want Alan Madison’s Velma Gratch and the Way Cool Butterfly (Random, 2007), and the older students love the surprise in Jeanne Willis’s Tadpole’s Promise (S & S, 2005). Barbara O’Connor’s How to Steal a Dog (Farrar, 2007), Jane O’Connor’s “Fancy Nancy” books (HarperCollins), and Rick Riordan’s “Percy Jackson and the Olympians” (Hyperion) are popular.
Kathleen Whalin, York Public Library, Maine:
Our library in a small seacoast town plays host to adolescents in a separate YA room. Middle schoolers consider it a badge of honor to select materials from that area rather than the children’s department. What they select ranges from fantasy to adventure to chick lit, showing great loyalty to favorite series: Stephenie Meyer’s“Twilight”(Little, Brown), Meg Cabot’s“Princess Diaries” (HarperCollins), James Patterson’s “Maximum Ride” (Little, Brown), Ann Brashares’s tales of “Traveling Pants” (Delacorte), Anthony Horowitz’s “Alex Rider” adventures (Philomel), and Philip Pullman’s “His Dark Materials” (Knopf). Few stand-alone titles are in great demand, although kids really like Mike Lupica’s Travel Team (Philomel, 2004). Middle schoolers recommend to their friends novels in verse, like Sharon Creech’s Love That Dog (HarperCollins, 2001), and they really like Karen Hesse’s Out of the Dust (Scholastic, 1997).
Carol Jones Collins, Hanover Park High School, East Hanover, NJ:
The kids are reading a wide variety of books. When new ones arrive, the word gets out pretty quickly. John Boyne’s The Boy in the Striped Pajamas (Random, 2006) is making the rounds, as are Kieran Scott’s Brunettes Strike Back (Putnam, 2006), John Green’s An Abundance of Katherines (Dutton, 2006), Wendelin Van Draanen’s Flipped (Knopf, 2001), and Alex Bradley’s 24 Girls in 7 Days (Dutton, 2005). One book, however, has caught the attention of a number of teens: David Holt’s The Exploding Toilet: Modern Urban Legends (August House, 2004) has blasted off the shelves, tickling the funny bones of those seeking to bring some humor to their stressful lives. Surprisingly, another favorite is its polar opposite, Edwidge Danticat’s tragic family tale, Brother, I’m Dying (Knopf, 2007). As for poetry, Tupac Amaru Shakur’s The Rose That Grew from Concrete (MTV, 2000) is quite popular.
