The other day, a group of African American students walked into the media center, and started scanning our rack of digital audiobooks. On looking more closely, one of them started laughing. “Why do they got a book called BLACK BEAUTY?” he said, at which his friends all started laughing too. It took a moment to realize the mistake they had made, but then the light-bulb went off in my head: even if they knew what the book really was about, why would a group of young, African American men from the North End of St. Paul want to read about some rich person’s talking horses?
In library school, the guiding principle of reader’s advisory was drilled into our minds again and again: the right book for the right child, at the right time. There was always the possibility of the heady thrill that comes when you find that right book, the one that turns a kid into a lifelong reader. It’s only now, when I’m suggesting reading materials for young people, that this has really come to life. When I was thirteen, I lived in relative safety and security in a quiet neighborhood with both of my parents. This meant I could enjoy books like Little House on the Prairie, Hitty: The First Hundred Years, and Miracles on Maple Hill. My students, though, are African, African American, Hmong, Lao, Karen, Native American, Hispanic. Many of them were born in refugee camps in Thailand, or in the rougher neighborhoods of St. Paul. Those classics that I grew up with don’t mean anything to them, because they don’t see themselves reflected there. It’s a challenge to divert them from books about gangs, to more positive books about people of color, from authors like Sharon Flake and Walter Dean Myers. It’s challenging but necessary: for a youth librarian, books are our tools for change. If we can help young people to see reflections of themselves in literature, we can ignite that spark that will keep them reading and learning for the rest of their lives.
