Celebrate Picture Books and Quit the Whining.

'Nuff said. Thanks to 100 Scope Notes for the link.

Picture Books - Let Kids Be Free to Read!

Ever since the New York Times ran an article last October about the fading in importance of picture books in young children's lives, the blogosphere has been talking about the craziness of the premise.  The latest thoughtful post comes from my sister blogger in Australia, Susan, who blogs at the always fabulous Book Chook. She argues for the importance of picture books for preschoolers as well as kids well beyond the preschool years. Letting kids choose their reading is anathema to some parents and even some library staffers (WHAT?!?!)

That concept of "free reading" that many of us champion is one most notably advocated by Stephen Krasheen. He wrote a short article in SLJ in 2006 that explores the concept and importance based on his longer book, The Power of Reading: Insights from the Research published by Libraries Unlimited in 2004. Boiling it down to beyond basic and in Marge-speak, the concept is that all reading for pleasure is good reading and helps builds kids vocabulary, comprehension and reading skills .  When kids have a choice in selecting what they want to read, their interest and excitement in the act of reading becomes more sustained.

Picture books aren't just for little kids.  They are great reads for older kids as well.  I like to think of them as the first graphic novels that children are exposed to.  They have a visual as well as literacy component that blends together into a coherent whole. More complex books like ones by Patricia Polacco, Chris Van Allsburg, Emily McCully, Bill Peet, Lane Smith, David Wiesner and Jon Scieszka and many others beg to be shared with second, third and even fourth graders.

How can we help kids - and parents - make that transition to free them to use these great books?  Creating spaces in older fiction collections and cataloging more complex picture books into those collections is one way - whether by labeling or creating a special section of "Illustrated Fiction" - this brings these picture books to the attention and into the hands of older readers. And by locating them in  the collections for older kids, we give an implied boost to their worthiness to be considered and selected by older browsers .

Featuring these books in handselling and reader's advisory on a daily basis is also a great way to promote them to older readers.  Include one of these picture books among the fiction and non-fiction in booktalks at schools or a few in packs of books that you pull for schools and classrooms of older students. And when you have programs with older kids, include these in your book discussions and mini-promotions.

All these options and paths to worthy books will help you free the kids, the parents, teachers, staffers ...and you!

Image: 'Free Daddy and His Little Shadow Girls+at+The+Skate+Park+Creative+Commons'  http://www.flickr.com/photos/40645538@N00/179279964

Top Shelf Magic

Yesterday a little bit of magic happened in our Picture Book collection.

When I started the new job 14 months ago, I was bummed to see that area jammed tight with books. We had a huge collection and too few shelves. The result was that an extra shelf had been added in every range so many of those beautiful picture books - all so tall and free - were shelved turned down so their spines were impossible to read. They couldn't tell or shout or whisper their name to browsers. They were hidden among their spine-out-look-at-me-sistah shelf buddies. And no one wanted them.

They were hard to shelve, hard to find and gave the shelves a raggedy,unkempt look. Families browsing for books passed them by. They were most uninviting, poor books, through no fault of their own!

Everyone in the Youth Department saw the problem. The need to weed was strong. But as a resource library for a system, we had to be careful on how we went about the process. We made a couple of decisions:

• We would start buying series picture books in paperback format only (Berenstain Bears; Clifford; Little Critter; superheroes; Barbie; Thomas the Tank Engine etc) to free up the shelves for the hardcover collection.
• We would weed heavily and downsize duplicate copies of materials that were not high demand.
• We would re-purpose display shelving, record bins and anything we could find to give us enough room to remove those cramped extra shelves and spread those picture books in this makeshift shelving so they could all shine.

The weeding was ongoing and we created the paperback collection to the delight of users throughout the past year. We were scheduled to do the rearrangement in the fall of 2009. But something kept me from moving forward on that piece of the plan. Too much, too complex, too hard for the patrons, too hard for our shelving staff. Then yesterday, it hit me. We had weeded enough! If we squeezed just a little, gave up a little face out display on each shelf and just did displays on top the shelves, we could remove that extra shelf and maybe the books would fit - all spine up, spine out.

So staffers pitched in and literally shifted the entire collection of picture books in a day. The extra shelves were removed and all the books fit!

Now they parade their beautiful titles to everyone, all standing up side by side. They look amazing, inviting and eager to leap into the hands of our readers. As the collection that everyone sees first when entering the department, we have transformed the experience of coming into our space. Now that is real magic!