camillejoy ([info]camillejoy) wrote,
@ 2007-04-02 21:08:00
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GSTBA Professional Development
The GSTBA Non-Fiction selection committee meeting was an exciting and interesting experience. It was great to see librarians so excited about certain books while also considering whether or not teens would actually like them (regardless of how much a librarian does). The discussion and small controversy over a book with stories of children affected by the AIDS crisis in Africa was notable because it illustrated the difficulty of balancing powerful and informative literature with literature that "makes us happy." After the book was passed around, even though at first many had hesitated to add it to the list, it was kept on because of the powerful content. At the same time, "Bat Boy Lives" was also on the list-- the complete opposite of the former book.

I don't consider myself an avid non-fiction reader, but the discussion at this meeting reminded me of the wide range of non-fiction available-- everything from humor, to history, to science was represented in their choices. This got me excited about books and excited about making other people excited about books! And it may have even reminded me that I should try ranging beyond the "F"s to find some interesting books to add to my reading list.


Just a side comment: Theresa was incredibly enthusiastic-- I was quite impressed with her!


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[info]jill548
2007-04-03 02:13 pm UTC (link)
The discussion and small controversy over a book with stories of children affected by the AIDS crisis in Africa was notable because it illustrated the difficulty of balancing powerful and informative literature with literature that "makes us happy."

I'm really glad that a conversation like that came up (the book in question, for anyone reading this, was Our Stories, Our Songs: African Children Talk About AIDS by Deborah Ellis). There were so many issues surrounding this book: with its large format, does it look more like a "little kid book"? Will teens pick it up on their own, or is it a book that librarians think they should read? Do teens inherently appreciate depressing topics (an argument put forth in favor of I Just Hope It's Lethal: Poems of Sadness, Madness, and Joy edited by Liz Rosenberg and Deena November), or do they favor humor, or some of each?

I don't consider myself an avid non-fiction reader, but the discussion at this meeting reminded me of the wide range of non-fiction available-- everything from humor, to history, to science was represented in their choices.

As we'd talked about in class last week, a lot of librarians tend to prefer fiction - either for our own leisure reading or for what we prefer teens and other library users to be reading. But as you say, there's such a range of nonfiction out there - some of it narrative, some of it how-to, some funny, some serious - that it's almost too broad to be one category!

I agree, Theresa's an awesome meeting leader. I was especially impressed by how quickly she learned everyone's names; she could call each of us by both our real names and the names of the people we were proxy-ing for!

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