New Hampshire Isinglass Teen Read Award: A Teen-Centered Selection Process
Amy Inglis -- School Library Journal, 5/20/2009
The Isinglass Teen Read Award began in 2001 in Barrington, NH, through a partnership between Amy Inglis, a public librarian, and Amy Perry, a school librarian. They decided to create a local list for seventh and eighth graders to vote on, with input from both students and librarians. In 2003, the list went statewide with support from the CHILIS (Children’s Librarians of New Hampshire) section of the New Hampshire Library Association.
Now student recommendations are collected from all over the state. A group of librarians reads all the recommendations, and chooses the final list of 20 titles. Students are invited to attend the selection meetings to give their opinions and are asked for written reviews. The logo for the award, as well as the bookmark art, was created through a student art competition. Over the past several years, the students of Hopkinton Middle/High School, under the direction of librarians Shelley Lochhead, Donna Zecha, and Janet Moore, have created podcasts of student book talks that kids really get excited about. Nancy Keane has included some of these Isinglass Podcasts on her site, Booktalks Quick and Simple.
On the local level, many librarians have found innovative ways to get kids reading books from the list and commenting on possible selections for the upcoming year. Kathy Pearce at Portsmouth Middle School creates giant wall panels, one for each nominee, and students and teachers sign their names to them as they read, adding a very fun visual and a neat way for the students and teachers to interact around the books. Pearce also has a library group called “Teen Library Connection” that talks about books on a Moodle forum. She created a special Isinglass nominee section where kids can comment on the books being considered for next year's list. It often provokes real and spirited exchanges about their shared love of reading, exactly what the Isinglass committee hopes to foster through the list. At the Berlin Junior High, librarian Yvonne Jenkins displays the books in a special area and kids enter a raffle each time they read one. They win the chance to participate in her Isinglass Café, a special time when the winners get together with snacks and 
talk about the books they’ve read. The students love to hear what their peers think of the different books, and many leave with new suggestions from other students. In Barrington, the birthplace of the award, the local middle school has used the Isinglass books as their summer reading list for the past several years.
