Genrefied, Part 2

My library has been divided by genre for most of this school year. We spent two months without genres, and now we have had four months with the fiction section divided by genre. Not only that, but three of those months (November, December, February) had at least five school holidays, which makes these statistics even more telling.  The blue bars represent last year's circulation, and the red bars are for this year:

I have noticed that my strong readers are thriving in this genre-fied library.  They know how to find what they like, and they notice when we get new books in a particular genre. They also have discovered that some of the genres are fairly similar, so that if they like mythology, for example, they may also like fantasy or paranormal books, or if they like romance, they may also like realistic fiction.

Some of my weaker readers, though, are still lost. They know what books they can tolerate, but they don't understand how to find them without my assistance, so I am constantly reminding a small group of students that Diary of a Wimpy Kid is in the humor section, and that the humor section has a yellow stripe.  Even then, these students will only read Wimpy Kid and won't touch other funny books, like Patterson's Middle School series or Angleberger's Origami Yoda series.  So while I would call my genre-fying successful, I still need to do more work to catch the non-readers in my library.

Thus I created an interactive infographic entitled "What's Your Genre?"  This display is on a large brown cabinet near my fiction section. I combined what I knew about the various genres in our library with my students' demonstrated love for quizzes and gave them a way to choose a genre to read.  It is not perfect by any means, but it is a start.  Already I have noticed students starting at the top of the graphic and following a line to the end, then going to the top and changing their answers to see if they get a different result.  I am hoping this will result in students trying a new genre as well as being better able to identify which genre a particular book belongs to.

In the future, I am planning to tailor my book talks to a particular genre for each class visit so that all classes are exposed to all different genres early on. I also make sure to include a variety of genres in my displays and booklists so that students are encouraged to explore the different sections of my library.

If anyone is interested in borrowing this idea, you can access the slides I printed/laminated to make the display here.

If you haven't read the first part, here's a link to the original Genrefied post. 

Sex & Violence

Mesrobian, Carrie. Sex & Violence. Carolrhoda 2013.

Evan's dad's job requires him to move a lot, so Evan's always been the new guy at school. When he's sent to a boarding school in North Carolina, however, he is attacked in the shower and nearly dies. Later, he and his dad move to the middle of nowhere, Minnesota, so that Evan can heal.

I didn't really like this book. First, there wasn't much of a plot. Second, the ending wasn't really an ending. Third, too much of the book was ambiguous. For example, it's hinted at that Evan's ... girlfriend is probably too strong a word ... is gang-raped right after he's beaten nearly to death, but it's never stated specifically. And the reader never finds out what Evan's planning to do after the end of the story, either. And he doesn't realize much about himself while he's in Minnesota, so there's not much resolution to this story. Add that to the graphic violence, prodigious profanity, numerous instances of teen drug and alcohol use, and the graphic sex scenes, and I just don't see what the fuss is all about. This book will NOT be added to my middle school library's collection, and I will be recommending other books to my students.

Recommended for: older young adults
Red Flags: sex, violence, lots of profanity (on practically every page), drug use, alcohol use
Overall Rating: 2/5 stars

Ophelia and the Marvelous Boy

Foxlee, Karen. Ophelia and the Marvelous Boy. Knopf BFYR, 2014.

Ophelia's mother died three months ago, and Ophelia and her sister have accompanied their father to a museum where he's setting up an exhibit of swords. Ophelia, always rational and scientific, is looking for a dinosaur exhibit when she stumbles upon a mural with a hidden door. When she looks into the keyhole of that door she sees the Marvelous Boy. He begins to tell her his story and Ophelia traverses the museum in search of keys to let him out of his room. She's not sure if she believes his story about a magic sword and a snow queen, until her mother's voice in her head reminds her to use her heart and not just her brain.

This book is amazingly well done. Ophelia is a very believable and lovable character, and her adventures in the museum, combined with the tales from the Marvelous Boy, make a great story that kept me turning the pages. This book would be easy to recommend to fans of The Chronicles of Narnia or fans of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. The fantasy elements also would resound with fans of Roald Dahl or Jenny Nimmo. I can't wait to add this one to my library's collections!

Recommended for: tweens, middle grade, fantasy fans, fans of Harry Potter, Narnia, Roald Dahl
Red Flags: mild sword-fighting, one character has his finger eaten by an owl
Overall Rating: 5/5 stars

I received a complimentary copy of this book through NetGalley for the purposes of review.

A Corner of White

Moriarty, Jaclyn. A Corner of White. Arthur A. Levine Books, 2013.

This book has two stories in it.  The first is Madeleine's.  She and her mother ran off to London, leaving a life of luxury to live in a small apartment where her mother sews for a living and they eat nothing but beans. Madeleine is having trouble adjusting to her new life and doesn't understand why they don't just go back to her father.

Contrasted with that is the story of Eliot, who lives in the Kingdom of Cello.  His father has disappeared, and Eliot is convinced that he can find his lost father.  When his mother leases his father's store to a strange couple that moves into town, and the Butterfly Child appears, Eliot has more on his plate than he can handle.

These two stories collide via a "crack" that connects the two worlds.  Eliot and Madeleine exchange letters through this crack, and their friendship develops as they help each other with their various problems and try to make the best choices with limited information.

This book started a bit slow for me.  I just didn't understand why I had both stories, when either one would have made a perfectly acceptable book.  Eventually, the story grew on me, and things made much more sense near the end.  I'm not certain whether I'll read the sequel; I'm not invested enough in the story at this point, but it was a fun book and I know I could recommend it to my stronger readers.

Recommended for: teens, tweens, strong readers who can stick with a story "until it gets good"
Red Flags: minor mentions of Madeleine's father's alcoholism
Overall Rating: 4/5 stars

Hostage Three

Lake, Nick. Hostage Three. Bloomsbury USA Children's, 2013. 

Amy's father and stepmother drag her onto her father's yacht for a summer trip.  Then the yacht is overtaken by Somali pirates off the coast of Africa and Amy is renamed Hostage Three. The pirates only want money, but the deadline is drawing near, and they're getting impatient.  How will Amy and her family survive?

This was actually a fairly interesting story, if it weren't for the insta-love between Amy and one of the pirates. I'm not sure if she was suffering from Stockholm Syndrome or what the deal was, but that part of the story seemed a bit ridiculous to me.  I enjoyed the rest of the story, though, including the increasing tensions between the hostages, who just want to be released, and the pirates, who want/need money. I can definitely see this book being popular in my library, and it would be easy to booktalk even to my reluctant readers.

Recommended for: teens, tweens

Red Flags: language, minor violence, Amy is almost raped at one point

Overall Rating: 4/5 stars