STACKED

books

What To Do With Books By Authors Accused of Assault, Racism, or Other Inappropriate or Illegal Behaviors

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This weekend saw victims of assault in the kid lit world coming forth to name the individuals who’ve harmed them. While no public forum like the comments on an SLJ article — one which fails to mention my work on this topic and fails to link to the work Anne Ursu was undertaking at the same time — will solve the issue, it’s a start. And like all starts, it’s rife with problems. It’s not victims alone coming forth to put voice to their experiences. It’s many on the sidelines sharing hearsay, which does more harm than good. In early instances in the SLJ comments, those individuals were told they were taking away from the voices of actual victims.

Over the last few days, a question has popped up in my inboxes, as well as across social media. What can teachers and librarians do now, knowing that they have seen names of authors and knowing they can’t ignore them?

This is tricky, but here are some options, and I hope this short, quick guide at least provides an opportunity to engage critically with your collection development, reader advisory, or teaching habits, as well as a pathway to navigating this unfamiliar terrain. Although timely in the wake of sexual assault victims speaking up, know this also applies to authors who’ve been engaging in racist and other behaviors which are inappropriate.

  • So you own books by those named…keep them on your shelves if they’re circulating or readers are picking them up. Do not toss them. That is censorship. But perhaps this is an opportunity to do some weeding. Pull up your circulation records of all books and following the CREW or other preferred methods of ridding materials from your collection, weed. If books by authors named haven’t moved in the same time frame that others being removed haven’t, then they can go. But to pull otherwise would be silent censorship.

 

  • So you own the books by those named and you’re keeping them on shelf…you’re under no obligation to promote them. Keep them on the shelf, but don’t put them on displays, on end caps, or in your book talks. Instead, use this as an opportunity to talk and share the books that are by other authors, especially those who are from marginalized groups. This is an opportunity to expand your own reading and your own skills, rather than relying on old habits which can be hard to kick.

 

  • So the books are in your classroom library…see above. No need to pull them unless they don’t move. Don’t judge your readers who choose to pick them up. But, perhaps, if your reader approaches you about the book’s content or about wanting to know more about the book, this is your chance to make a choice: do you have an honest conversation with them? Do you use it as an opportunity to have a wider conversation with your classroom? Or do you provide the basic information and encourage your students to engage in their own research odyssey? Only you can decide that based on your students and/or your patrons.

 

  • So the author has a new book coming out….do you buy it or pretend you don’t see it? This one is about going back to basics. Use the trade reviews. It’s so easy to auto-buy books by well-known authors or those who’ve had acclaim before. But why? It’s taking the easy route. Read the trade reviews, and if the reviews are positive, then you buy the book. If they’re middling to poor, consider your community. If it’s a community that would want the book, buy it. If not, then don’t. And if you do buy the book, either on good reviews or because your community would want it, buy another book or two, too, that has excellent reviews that you may have otherwise overlooked. Put in the work. For those without access to the trade review journals, know that many review excerpts show up on major retail sites, and that some sites, like Kirkus, offer their reviews for free online.

 

  • So you use the book in your classroom as a discussion title…why can’t you change it? If it’s your choice, use your choice. Pick another title. If it’s a title which is mandated by a department, bring the situation up to your department. It might not change the requirement, but staying silent when you know there’s a possible issue is worse. It’s tricky, of course, but speaking your truth will often make your voice shake. And that’s okay. You can use this experience when, if you are still required to teach the book, you teach the book.

 

  • So you don’t have the book in your library but someone asks for it…if it’s an older book, see if you can acquire it elsewhere, either via interlibrary loans, system holds, or track down a borrowed or used copy from another person. This ensures legality but also ensures money isn’t exchanged. If it’s a new book, you might need to buy the book. Use the same standards you’d use in any other collection development situation — if you buy all books people ask for, you need to buy it. But, like noted above, you are in no way required to promote it. Serve your patrons. Get them what it is they are asking for. Feel no other requirement but that when it comes to that book.

 

  • So what are some other things I can do…if you’re part of a planning committee for author visits or events, speak up if someone who is being talked about as a possibility is someone you’d feel uncomfortable with. Use your voice. If you see an all-male or all-white panel at an event, speak up. Get it changed. The same goes for purchasing. For writing book lists. For book talking. Work on inclusion at every turn, and keep your ears to the ground. If something makes you feel uncomfortable, trust that instinct. And, as has been said over and over, if you hear a first-hand story, if someone tells you something about being a victim (a student, a patron, a colleague, a professional), believe them.

 

If librarians or educators have any more questions not addressed here about what to do in light of what we’re learning, please reach out. Drop them in the comments here, and Kimberly, me, or our fantastically thoughtful readers can hop in and offer some thoughts. Remember that you have all the tools you need at your disposal. It’s a matter of remembering to turn back to those and rely on them as means to help you through.

Integrity, Climate Change, Social Justice, and Other Necessary Facts: A Reading List

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Something I’ve been wanting to do more of is round-up links of interest for older posts we’ve written here at Stacked, as well as older posts you might be interested that Kimberly and I have written elsewhere. Being that we’re on year eight at STACKED, there are so many things we’ve touched upon and dug into, and much of it is perennially interesting.

In the spirit of a US administration bent on the idea of “alternative facts,” denial of climate change, the closing of the investigation into the Flint Water Crisis, and bills meant to restrict access to affordable health care, reproductive choice, and more, it’s hard to want to keep on fighting. It feels like every day is a set of new laws, new proposals, and new stories.

The one place that has been a light — teenagers.

 

A Resource Guide To

 

We’re all aware that Teen Vogue is one of the best journalism sources out there right now, and that’s because they know their audience is smart, savvy, social justice minded teenagers. Teens have been at the forefront of leading marches and protests, and it’s teens who we keep seeing show up again and again to do the work.

I keep trying to find a way to build a booklist that adequately captures what it is teens are thinking and doing, and I realized that we’ve covered so many of these topics here on STACKED That it made a lot more sense to do a big round-up. So here, find yourself big book lists of YA reads covering topics of reproductive rights, social justice, climate change, doing what’s right, truth telling, journalism, and more.

Because the kids? They’re all right. Even in fiction.

And it might be that fiction is where we find the answers that allow us to fight on another day.

Please note: when we changed blog hosting services last summer, some of our older posts got a little weird in their formatting. We’re working on updating those where possible. They’re entirely readable and usable; just sometimes, the images look funny or uneven. Also note that this isn’t comprehensive.

 

 

On Science and Climate Change 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On Women’s Rights and Feminism

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On Journalism, Censorship, and Integrity

 

 

 

  • A guide to talking about tough books with teens. While this focuses on books relating to sexuality, violence, drugs, and more, the same principles are applicable to talking about the current media and political climate (and women’s/queer rights). This might be a post we revisit, with a focus specifically on those arenas.

 

 

 

On Inclusivity/Race & Diversity 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On Inclusivity/Queer & LGBTQ Rights and Issues

 

 

 

 

 

 

  • On micraggressions and queer phobia in the public library.

 

 

Disability

 

 

 

Socioeconomic Class 

 

 

#1000BlackGirlBooks Donation Fund Drive Book List

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Black Girls

 

In Mid-January, a story about 11-year-old Marley Dias and her quest to collection 1000 books about black girls hit the internet. Or maybe the correct phrasing of that is that it hit the internet in a way where it picked up attention and got spread far and wide in the book community. Almost immediately, I knew I wanted to do what I could to help this fabulous girl collect the books she wanted to meet her goal.

Like last year, I thought putting it out there that I’d take up donations would work. But unlike the Some Girls Are drive, rather than collect books and send them to Marley, I opened up my Paypal account to accept donations, which I’d then funnel into sending her book after book after book.

Nearly $3000 came in from the drive, which is fabulous and powerful. I still have a couple hundred dollars left to spend, and it’s my idea to get in touch with the people behind this project and help fill in any additional holes.

One of the fun, frustrating, and challenging elements of this drive was selecting the books to send. I let anyone who donated choose a title or two (or ten, it didn’t matter!) to send, but I limited to one copy of each title. I did this knowing that some titles, like brown girl dreaming and Pointe would be requested again and again and be sent again and again. There’s nothing wrong with that in the least, especially for a library like the one Dias is working toward, but I wanted to offer a further range of titles, too. Thanks to the hard work of dedicated people like Zetta Elliott and Edi Campbell, I was able to really dig deep into the world of kid lit featuring black girls at the center of the story. In addition to utilizing their incredible resources, I tapped into the brains of Sarah Hannah Gomez, Justina Ireland, and Anne Ursu, who all provided a wealth of title ideas for sending.

Justina further pointed something out to me that I’ve been unable to stop thinking about. It only took $2500 to collect nearly every black girl book in children’s/middle grade/YA/crossover adult. These books have limited shelf lives, as numerous titles were tough to track down or required me going through third parties to collection. Do you know how sad it is to think that that amount of money is all it takes to buy nearly everything?

I’m thrilled we could do this, but it didn’t hit me how difficult finding black girl books truly was until I’d exhausted the obvious, exhausted the less obvious, and still have some money left over to find further titles.  I am eager to see how Marley completes this dream of hers, as well as what her library will look like, but I’m also saddened to see so clearly the very thing she was talking about (and that so many others have and continue talking about): these books are not out there, not obvious, and that needs to change. I also ran into seeing just how few graphic novels offer black girls at the center of the story.

As promised, here’s a round-up of nearly everything I purchased for #1000BlackGirlBooks. This list is so long and took a long time to compile, so forgive any errors or mistakes. I’m doing what I can to designate titles by category — picture books and early readers, middle grade, YA, adult, and graphic novel. I’ve starred titles within each of those categories that are non-fiction, and all links will take you to Amazon. I’m choosing to do it that way because I’m using Amazon as my way of gauging ages for some of the titles, and it’s where I made my purchases for Marley because of the ability to track purchases and ensure quick delivery.

I used my librarian brain when buying these, knowing these will be used in libraries. That means there are award winners here, as well as popular books, as well as pop culture leaning title. This is a mix of a little of everything, just as it should be.

Ready? Here we go.

 

Picture Books/Early Reader Titles

 

 

Middle Grade (some are higher level and some lower)

 

 

Young Adult

 

 

Adult (with crossover appeal)

 

 

Graphic Novels

 

 

How to Talk Tough Books to Teens

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How do adults read books for teens?

This is one of the questions that Liz Burns explores in a post she wrote last week over at Tea Cozy. I talked about this a little bit in a piece I wrote up on Tumblr last week, too, in light of how important it is to respect teenagers.

How do readers sometimes react when they read books for teens?

This is one of the things that Carrie Mesrobian ponders in an excellent post over at Teen Librarian Tool box. More than that, she delves into separating fiction from artist and how depiction of an action isn’t condoning that action. The next day, she and the ladies of YA Highway kicked off a hash tag discussion on Twitter, #SensibleYA, which generated a good piece over at Bustle worth reading.

Both of these questions and the respective responses are worth thinking about when you work with teenagers, and they’re as important if you work with teenagers and are responsible for helping guide their reading in some capacity or other. Whether you buy books for a library, work with teens in writing workshops, teach teens in the classroom, write novels, or otherwise connect teens with books and words, it’s valuable to regularly step back and reflect upon not just what you’re doing but how and why you’re doing it. It’s really easy to put your adult mindset and experiences and expectations on those teenagers and what it is they’re doing and experiencing and forget that they’re teenagers — not miniature adults.

Last week, on one of the librarian listservs, a librarian emailed asking two things: whether anyone had read Carrie Mesrobian’s Sex & Violence and/or any other YA books with a proliferation of sex in them and whether anyone had a good argument for changing her mind about recommending those books to teens. Woven into the email was the uncomfortableness with which the librarian felt about reading and recommending books like those.

Stepping back from the fact that Mesrobian’s title doesn’t feature very much sex — there’s a lot more talking about it than doing it on page — it was interesting to watch what people had to say about this. Many responses said they’d read the title, and then a separate string of responses noted that there were a number of great YA novels featuring positive and empowering sexual experiences.

What was never answered, though, was the second part of the question and perhaps the part of the question that was most important: how to talk about and recommend these books to teen readers.

When we’re put into the position as adults to be responsible for working with teenagers, there are times we’re going to be uncomfortable with what we’re asked to do or talk about. The thing is, when you work with adults, you’re put into a lot of uncomfortable positions, too, but it seems much less world-changing than it does when faced with teens. For some reason, it’s easier to guide adults who are asking about health-related topics toward resources than it is to guide teens who are asking similar questions. I think part of this has to do with feeling more like a peer than an advocate/guardian, and I think part of it is that sometimes, we’re plain scared to talk with teenagers about really heavy stuff.

Maybe it’s that we’re being protective. Maybe it’s that we’re worried about what the parents may do or say or think if they knew you gave that teen a book or talked with them about a topic that’s tougher to broach. Maybe it’s that sometimes it’s what Liz and Carrie got at in their posts: we are too invested in our own adult worlds and beliefs about the adult world that we forget being a teenager can be damn hard in and of itself.

Sometimes, too, it’s just that it can be uncomfortable to talk to a teenager about big things. If we aren’t comfortable with it, whether consciously or unconsciously, then there’s no way we can be comfortable talking about it with someone who can be really influenced by what we say or suggest (that opens up more about influence, too, which I also believe plays a role in our comfort levels — how much of a role do we REALLY play in the lives and futures of teens is the kind of question that’s easily tangled in your head, even if you have a clear picture of what your mission is in working with or for teens).

But back to the question: how? HOW do you talk about these sorts of books with teen readers? Whether your reading skews toward preferring tough topics or avoids it all together, being aware of what books are out there and what content they may or may not contain is important to doing a job of being an advocate for readers and for books themselves.

We read reviews of books in order to make purchase selections in the library, and many readers who work with teens read reviews of books because they enjoy reading reviews — it gives perspective and depth to what a book is about and can save time and energy in the event that book won’t be read. I don’t read a lot of speculative fiction personally, but I certainly read a lot of reviews, both in trade journals and around the blogging world, because I need to have an idea what the books are about in order to not only buy them, but to best match them with future readers. The same mentality goes and should go for books which are on these “tougher” topics.

What are “tougher” topics? It’s going to depend on each person, but I suspect there are a few everyone would agree on: sex, drugs, drinking, and, trailing way off in the distance, violence.

In many ways, we find talking about and thinking about books about murder easier than we do talking about or thinking about books tackling sex. Dead bodies are easier, for some reason, than ones that are alive and active. It’s easier to stand in front of a room of teenagers and talk about a serial killer or a murder mystery than it is to talk about a book about sex and the consequences therein. It’s part hook — it’s just easier TO talk about a serial killer than it is to talk about a teen figuring out lines of comfort in sexual situations — but it’s also part culture and fear.

Some of that fear can and should be broached. You should push yourself to talk about books that make you as a reader uncomfortable talking about. It’s how you grow professionally, but even more than that, it’s how you show yourself an advocate for teens and for reading. If you have the guts and courage to stand in front of a classroom and talk about Mesrobian’s book — hitting that yes, there’s sex and yes, there’s violence but at heart, it’s about a boy learning about consequences related to making decisions — you show teens that you’re not only mature, but that you’re willing to discuss heavier topics.

While it may not seem like you’re saying that, since you’re not using those words, in many ways it’s by not saying those words you’re sending the message. Plus, teenagers are going to clamor for a book that may have sex in it, period. You could skip the talk all together and just read the title of the book for Mesrobian’s and have more willing takers than copies of the title.

Saying “sex” in front of teens shouldn’t be a challenge. It’s not about being gratuitous. It’s about laying things out as they are and owning that. Teens who are ready for it will be ready for it; those who aren’t ready for it will tune you out.

A good book talk isn’t about the gritty details. It’s about the big picture and about selling the book on that. If the book is about sex, that should come up. If sex is but a detail within the book, it doesn’t need to be brought up, unless you need to address that there are topics within the book best suited for older readers (and not as a means of censorship nor barring readers — rather, as a means of covering yourself if confronted about a scene or two in the book which could make more sensitive readers unhappy to discover). Good book talks are a fine dance between giving just enough information to entice a reader and leaving out the big reveals and revelations so that reader can discover them on his or her own.

That said, perhaps the truth is a lot of these “tougher” books aren’t best suited for traditional book talking. Maybe it’s worthwhile to remember that a lot of these books that can be uncomfortable to talk about are perfect candidates for not just displays, but for shelf talkers, for book lists, and for other means of passive reader’s advisory.

Build lists of books together that handle tough topics, being mindful of the language used to present them. These aren’t “issue” books — “issue” and “problem” books went out of vogue decades ago. These are books that tackle tough or sensitive or mature or real life topics instead.

Use the words.

If you’re writing a book list about teens who have substance abuse problems, use those words. If you’re writing a description for Tim Tharp’s The Spectacular Now, don’t tiptoe around the fact Sutter has a substance abuse problem. If you’re writing a description for a book where the character is sexually abused or raped, note that there is sexual violence in the book. If noting any of these things is going to be a spoiler on the book itself (and many times it can be), then do a good job of being descriptive and thoughtful in creating an introduction to a book list on a topic and listing the titles beneath it well enough that it’s clear the books tackle hard topics and don’t do so meekly.

Pool together book displays when appropriate and there’s a bigger tie-in possible. Although I think doing displays on tougher topics is worthwhile any time, in many ways, it’s easier to justify and advocate for them when there’s a larger way to marry those books into something else. As I noted last week, February is teen dating violence month — you have ample opportunity to not just put out a display of books on the topic, but you have opportunities to also present information for local and national/international resources on the topic. An awesome example is this display by Danielle Fortin for sexual assault awareness month in April, which combined books on the topic with resources for teens who may need them.

Use the words.

Make shelf talkers for those tougher books in your collection and don’t shy away from calling them what they are. Teens are excellent self-censors and will know whether that book is for them or not if they’re able to read what it’s about. Likewise, offering shelf talkers and displays that use the words for situations that may arise within the book is a safety net for the parents, too: if they are browsing with their teens for books, there’s not going to be a surprise. And the more you feature a combination of books that do include tougher topics, the more it becomes clear these are topics that exist in the books because they also exist in teen lives.

Which isn’t, of course, to say you only feature those books on shelf talkers or on displays. You incorporate them with other books, showcasing the breadth and range of titles out there.

Advocating for teens means allowing yourself discomfort. It’s unavoidable, even for those who don’t shy away from much. The trick is not showing that discomfort unless doing so is advantageous — and sometimes it can be. Perhaps there are times acknowledging your discomfort during a reading experience can be what sells the title. Did reading Sex & Violence make you uncomfortable? Unpack that in a one-on-one reader’s advisory interaction with a teen if it seems like that book might be a good fit for him or her. That not only sells the book to the reader, but it also shows the reader you’re not a robot. Even though you’re an adult, you, too, find things uncomfortable or funny or weird or strange (any of those words you could attribute to that book or the content within in — use those words and use the words “sex” and “violence” and “consequences,” too).

Respect books geared toward a teen readership. Respect that the teen years are a range of experiences, maturities, needs, and wants. Respect that often those books reflect that, either by taking on hard subjects in an unflinching manner or by showcasing stories meant for those who are 17 or 18 and seeking heavy literary works or by going the opposite and providing light hearted reads, books that are meant simply to be funny or are meant for those 12 and 13 year old readers just entering some of the hardest, most frustrating, and most confusing years of their lives as they’re coming into their own.

What it comes down to is being honest and being thoughtful with that honesty. Use the right words. Don’t shy away from using them and don’t shy away from discussing them. What you may find yourself wincing at within a teen book may be the very thing a teen needs to read or the very thing that also makes a teen wince. The more you work with books tackling tough topics and the more you put those things out there in an accessible, honest manner, the easier it becomes to incorporate them into reader’s advisory, into recommendations, into book talks, and the easier it becomes to understand not just the books, but the teens who are seeking them out.

The easier it becomes, too, to be a better ally for those teens because you begin seeing them as teens.

Observations Upon Weeding: What My Teens Aren’t Reading

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The library I work at moved into its new building in 2009. When I started, I was told the YA collection hadn’t been weeded since the move (maybe even before the move). At this point, the stacks are packed since we’ve continued to acquire in that time. But more than simply being packed, the collection is in desperate need for attention in the form of weeding. 

For non-librarians, weeding is the art and science of removing books from a collection. I say art and science because it’s a little bit of both — your science comes in the form of numbers, such as dates of last check out and the number of times a book has checked out, while your art comes from thinking about those numbers in context of the book itself and its place in your collection. Do you keep all award winning books, even if they haven’t circulated in 3 or 4 years? Do you keep a book that last circulated in 2010 but you know that, if you were to display or put onto a book list, would get picked up by a new reader? Do you keep books with terrible covers knowing that the content is excellent? If you have a book that hasn’t moved in three years but another library in your system has it, can you safely pull your copy knowing another is easily available? 

You also have to consider your books in a series a little bit differently: if book two of a four book series is missing or hasn’t moved in years, do you remove just that volume or do you remove the entire series? What about if you cannot replace a book that you discover is missing because it has gone out of print?

Another consideration I like to make is whether or not to replace a book that does circulate well with a newer edition. I noted in my review of To Be Perfectly Honest by Sonya Sones, the new covers of her backlist titles are fantastically contemporary. So much so that weeding the older, still circulating titles, in order to replace them with the newer look was worth the budget costs. They’ll get new life and readership. 
Weeding is one part objective and one part subjective. It’s figuring out a fine balance between the two. 
Many people hate weeding. It’s hard to be objective because so much of reading is about the subjective experience. You know a book hasn’t moved, that the chances of it moving are slim, and yet you can’t stop thinking that maybe if that right reader found this right book, it is worth keeping on the shelf. 
I am not one of those people. I love weeding. I love putting my analytical brain to work with my more subjective brain, but more than that, I love the cleaning element of weeding. When you weed books from your shelves, you invite better browsing and discoverability. Because readers are no longer having to sort through, say, 75 books jammed on one shelf, they are looking instead at 50 or 60. There’s breathing room to sort through titles, and there’s breathing room for inviting new titles into the collection. 
When you weed, you’re also looking at every book as a singular object. For me, my familiarity with my collection is through what I have myself purchased or put onto a reader’s advisory guide. My familiarity is also in what I’ve read or what I’ve helped other people seek out. And while that’s not an insignificant number of books, with weeding, I’m revisiting older titles — older meaning books 10 years old or 3 years old — and looking at what they’re about. I take notes when I weed about themes and content. That helps me think about not only whether to weed it or not, but it gives me a sense of what may be missing in or collection or what may be simply overlooked. 
Because for the most part, as much as readers love the newest books, they also love backlist. 
I don’t need my collection to average only one or two years old. I need my collection to best reflect the interests and needs of my patrons. 
Over the course of this weeding project, I have found some really interesting trends in regards to what my YA readers are reading (and note that I continue to use “YA readers,” as opposed to teens because while teens make up the bulk of YA readers, they aren’t the only YA readers in the library). I’ve also noticed really interesting trends in terms of publishing, as well. When you begin looking at the books that published around the same time and explore their similarities and consider what the book landscape looks like today, it’s fascinating.
Here’s a look at some of the trends I’ve noticed from my weeding project. I’m talking about them fairly broadly, as well as pulling out some interesting anecdotes. This post will highlight some of the little gems I’ve found in the collection that caught my eye, too, perhaps as a means of not only put them on some reading radars, but as a means of having others think about the value of the backlist.

For what it’s worth, my observations are based on 200 titles I marked as ones I’d like to weed based on paper credentials alone, so circulation dates and numbers. It doesn’t mean they’ll be the only ones weeded and it doesn’t mean that I’ll weed them all when I get to the shelves. But 200 is the number for numerical state. 

YA Book Length

When I began looking at titles that haven’t moved much in a few years, I found evidence of an instinct I’d had about YA books in general: books have gotten longer. There’s not a definitive average length of a YA novel that I know of, but a little research brought up a couple of interesting posts. First, agent Bree Ogden suggests the average YA novel is between 55,000 and 90,000 words, which translates to roughly 200 to 350 pages. But if you go check out list word count list by author Jessica Khory, you can see that the actual word counts of well-know YA novels average on the high end of that list and beyond. Generally, though not always, fantasy and science fiction novels tend to average a little higher.
For the titles I’ve marked as ones to weed, the average page count was 231 pages. That translates to about 65,000 words or so. That’s definitely on the lower end of average, if it’s even within average anymore. 

Page counts ranged from 93, 95, and 96 total (those were published in 2004, 2006, and 2001 respectively) to 553 and 574 (2006 and 2009 respectively). It’s worth noting that looking at my data, the average publication date of my to-weed titles in 2006, and I would maybe go as far as to argument that 2006 and 2007 were sort of turning point years for YA. It didn’t quite take off yet, but that date seems to be a tipping point not just in my collection but for YA more broadly. 

2006 is when Twilight was first published. 

Age of YA Characters
From what I can tell with my data, they’ve gotten older. Again, there’s not any standard to judge by, and it’s very possible my own reading skews my perception on the average age of a YA protagonist. But I tend to think more of them fall into the 16 or 17 year old range than younger — for many reasons. 

Looking at my own information was tougher because many books don’t outright tell you the main character’s age. I ended up going through catalog records of my titles, and I pulled ages out where I could find them. So, the average age I pulled comes from 158 titles, as opposed to the 200 I looked at. 

My average age was 14.95 — or I’ll go ahead and say 15 to make it even. It’s worth noting that we do have a juvenile section, so our teen area is for readers 12 and older; some libraries have middle grade with their YA, but we do not. To me, that 15 average seems somewhat young, though I feel like the age range I found was more telling: some of the YA novels featured characters ages 10, 11, and 12 (all published before 2006, except for two which featured 12 year olds, published in 2007 and 2010). In 2003, there was a pair of books featuring a 19-year-old that were part of a series, and the same went for a pair of books published in 2008. There were twenty books published with main characters who were 17 or older, but the bulk hovered in the 13, 14, and 15 year old range. 

Besides suggesting to me that main characters have aged a bit (again, I have no conclusive proof except in my own reading experience), it also suggests to me that books with older protagonists do better in my collection than those with younger ones. 

Trends/Popular Titles That No Longer Are Popular
This is entirely community-centric and specific, so this might not be the case in all libraries, though it’s true in mine. What used to be hot and trendy doesn’t always last, as my circulation stats seem to suggest. I go by a baseline of last circulation date in 2010, though I consider last circulation date of 2011 on a title-by-title basis, especially for books as part of a series. 

Remember when these were hot commodities?

I used to have to replace them all the time when I began working in libraries in 2009. But in 2013? These haven’t moved in two or three years. 

I’ve also found that books spun in the light of those above titles also haven’t moved a whole lot. It breaks my heart, but the books Anna Godbersen’s The Luxe series has not been checked out in a couple of years, either. The first book has a billed status in our catalog, meaning it never came back to us, but seeing that no one has asked about it and the other books haven’t moved in a couple of years, I feel okay in saying they aren’t likely to see a resurgence. 

We don’t own her second series and as far as I know, we haven’t been asked to acquire it, either. 

Beyond those, there are other books, too, that have fallen out of favor. 

We have the Pendragon series in YA, and though it used to be quite popular, it seems to not have gone out in a while. Part of me wonders if the covers are doing a disservice to the series now, as they look really young compared to the fantasy that’s been published in more recent years (book one published in 2002, for the record). 

The other book — which is part of a series — doesn’t surprise me at all in its lack of circulation. Rave New World, along with a number of other similar titles, weren’t necessarily novels for reading, but instead, they were written and marketed as books for readers to prepare for the SAT. Remember that trend a few years ago? Teens aren’t dumb. They know this is meant to be medicine for them, rather than something they pick up for enjoyment. The publication dates on the SAT novels in my library are 2004, 2005, and 2006 respectively, and there is a grand total of zero circulations combined. Those things are leaving. 

Although it’s not a trend, I found that in our collection, books which are Biblical retellings or stories based on any Bible elements don’t circulate.  I plan on keeping a few of them by well-known authors, but the majority are not paying their rent on our shelf space. 

Very Dated Covers
This is the “art” part of weeding being an art and a science, quite literally. There are times when you look at the cover of a book and just know that it is time for the book to go. Either it’s one you can replace easily with new and updated work or it’s a book that hasn’t moved in a while and you have a pretty good reason to suspect it’s because the cover simply dates the book. It’s unfair, but in YA especially, it does matter. Particularly as cover art has gotten to be a huge aspect of the selling of YA books. 

Then there are times when the cover doesn’t make sense, as is the case in this one:

Pretty innocuous all things considered. But the book features a male main character who takes a job at an advertising agency. It seems like a little bit of a disconnect from the jacket copy — though I haven’t read it to see where the girl might play in. The book circulated really well when it was in its heyday, but it hasn’t moved since 2010 in my collection. I have no idea if the cover has anything to do with that but it was one that made me stop. 

Here’s a look at a handful of the covers that made me pause and give a lot of consideration to whether they’re worth holding on to or they should be let go.

All of these look really dated and really juvenile. While The Exchange Student fits the story, it’s still bizarre. 

These are a few more of the “too dated” or “too young” covers in our collection. I think, too, Visiting Miss Caples looks like it’s not a YA book at all. 

I could post a lot more of the covers, but for me, the cover consideration aspect of weeding happens less when I’m working on paper with numbers and much more when I’m in the stacks physically looking at the books. If anything, though, it’s clear that cover design in YA has not only become a means of really selling a book to readers, but it also has gotten much, much better. I’d even argue that many YA cover models now look like they’re 20-somethings, rather than teens. I think that might be an appeal factor, too. 

Backlist Gems

I’ve stumbled upon some real gems in my weeding, too, which is one of the biggest reasons I love this part of collection development in libraries. Sure, many of these books haven’t circulated in a few years, and sure, many may end up off my shelf, but sometimes you find books in your collection that you know you can sell on a display or in a reader’s guide or in a book talk. They have themes or topics that are still timely and relevant and would make excellent read alikes to well-known and popular titles. 

My biggest and favorite find so far was this one, with what might be one of my favorite covers in a long time because it fits the content so perfectly:

Wait. Wait. Wait. I know you’re thinking that the cover looks really young. And it does. But the description of this book is what sells the cover. 

Sixteen-year-old Kayla, a ballet dancer with very large breasts, and her sister Paterson, an artist, are both helped and hindered by classmates as they confront sexism, conformity, and censorship at their high school for the arts while still managing to maintain their sense of humor. (via Worldcat).

This sounds awesome.

The weeding process is a lengthy one, without any hard-and-fast rules, but it’s one that is so satisfying not only from the collection-level standpoint, but from the reader’s advisory standpoint, as well. With shelves that aren’t filled with books that aren’t moving, it’s easier for readers to discover books they want to read, and it’s easier for people who are reader’s advisors to know their collections well. In some cases, what should be weeded and doesn’t get weeded gives an opportunity to get those under-read gems to shine on shelf and in reader’s advisory tools.