Librarian’s Dilemma: Where Do You Shelve Neil Gaiman’s Newbery?

By Debra Lau Whelan -- School Library Journal, 2/8/2009 7:42:00 PM

There’s no question that kids are wild about the latest Newbery winner, Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book (HarperCollins, 2008). Public libraries across the country are reporting that all of their copies are checked out, and, at some, requests for holds are numbering in the hundreds.

Although there’s a consensus among kids, librarians can’t seem to agree on one essential issue: Where does the book belong—in the children’s area or in the teen section?

The New York Public Library, Chicago Public Library, and Boston Public Library keep the book in their juvenile areas. But the Seattle Public Library, Phoenix Public Library, Houston Public Library, and Los Angeles Public Library catalog the novel in their YA sections.

Why is there such a discrepancy among some of the country’s largest public library systems when it comes to shelving this year’s Newbery winner? Despite the fact that major reviewers—including SLJ—recommend the book for kids in grades five to eight, libraries adhere to their own particular policies when it comes to handling children’s books that address delicate issues, such as death, or are potentially scary, says Cass Mabbott, manager of the Children’s Center at the Seattle Public Library.

After reading the book—about a toddler who is raised by graveyard ghosts after his family is murdered—Mabbott says she definitely thought it belonged in the tween category because of its crossover appeal. The book’s “intense” opening scene—coupled with the fact that she checked to see where other public libraries were placing the title—explains why it was ultimately shelved in the YA area, says Amy Walter, Seattle’s selection services librarian for children’s and teen materials. So far, Seattle has 80 copies of The Graveyard Book on order, and there are no plans to recatalog any of them because the library doesn’t place books in both collections, she adds.

Since Gaiman’s book arrived at the Greenwich Library in Connecticut last September, it’s been cataloged for young adults, says Children’s Services Librarian Alice Sherwood. But soon after it won the Newbery Medal in January, staffers decided to order three more copies for the children’s room. What if the book hadn’t won the most prestigious award in children’s literature? “It may have just stayed [in YA],” says Sherwood.

Indeed, Marilyn Derr, who orders children’s books for the Greenwich Library, says sex, violence, and even the title of a book can determine whether it ends up in the children’s or YA collection.

Ilene Abramson, director of children’s services for the Los Angeles Public Library, says the decision to place The Graveyard Book in the older kids’ section was because YA books in her library start at the sixth-grade level and by shelving the title in the teen section it would reach a larger audience. What about the fact that some parents might challenge a controversial book in the children’s section? “It crosses your mind,” she says, adding her library also determined that Lynne Rae Perkins’ Newbery-winning Criss Cross (Greenwillow, 2005) belonged in the YA section. The book, about a group of childhood friends who face a crossroads in life, is intended for students in grades six to nine.

Meanwhile, Linda Brilz, a youth services librarian and selector of books for juvenile and YA fiction at the Boise Public Library in Idaho, says that even though younger kids are allowed to check out YA books at her library, some parents may not want them to take out titles shelved in an older section. All but one of her system’s branches catalog The Graveyard Book for young adults.

The Ann Arbor District Library may have hit upon the most Solomon-like solution to the problem—it classifies Gaiman’s book under Y for youth fiction, which is in between J for juvenile and T for books in the teen room.

But one West Coast librarian suggested that another reason for shelving The Graveyard Book in the YA section may be to avoid challenges by keeping the book out of the hands of younger readers. “The first chapter is pretty graphic for many parents, and we all remember the controversy with the ‘scrotum’ issue,” she says, referring to the fact that several elementary school librarians vowed not to buy Susan Patron’s 2007 Newbery-winning novel, The Higher Power of Lucky (S&S/Atheneum/Richard Jackson Bks., 2006), because the anatomically correct word appeared on the opening page.

Are some libraries shelving Gaiman’s book in the YA section because of its disturbing opening scene? If so, then that “clearly smacks of self-censorship,” says Pat Scales, president of the Association of Library Services to Children. Scales, who says that although determining what materials belong in the children and young adult section is oftentimes difficult, “Anytime you keep something from its intended audience or make it difficult for them to find, that’s self-censorship.” And that’s against professional ethics.

Scales’s advice is to buy one copy for the children’s section and another for the YAs. “Kids have loved ghost stories from the beginning of time,” she says. “What are you going to do? You can’t keep all ghost stories out of the children’s room.”