Dewey is not a family value

[cedarlibrarian]

Today, a twelve-year-old (she looked older) girl came into my teen section and picked up a copy of Meg Cabot's All-American Girl. Since it's on a required reading list for the local junior high, I asked her if she needed help finding other required books. No, she's okay, she goes to a different school with a suggested reading list. Note that

Comments

[burningtoast]

Reminds me of an encounter I had recently, in which a woman (not an old lady by any means, probably late 30s-early 40s) wanted me to recommend a good book. She expressed absolutely no preference for genre, theme, setting, etc. She asked me point-blank what the best book was that I had read recently; I said Confessions of a Pagan Nun, which I had just read for the first time and loved.

Of course, upon hearing the title her face falls - I give her a rough overview of what the book's about. "Does it contain white magic?" she asks worriedly - as if that term really means anything - and I tell her again that the main character is a young Druid. "Is it anti-Christianity?" she asks then, and I very vehemently said no - because to me it certainly wasn't, but was instead very spiritually positive. It was only after she took the book that I started thinking about how her perceptions of the book may be radically different than mine and how, any day now, she'll probably come back to angrily wave the book in my face.

I love doing reader's advisory except when a case like this comes up. I can't use my own values and philosophies to judge the appropriateness of a book for a complete stranger. I can only base my recommendation of a book on the quality of it as a piece of literature/entertainment. But try explaining that to a patron. The narrow-mindedness rampant out there these days is astonishing.

I'll be glad when the Summer Reading season is over, and it sounds like you will be too. Hang in there.

[cedarlibrarian]

I just checked out Confessions of a Pagan Nun and I blame you entirely.