This is a good idea

Friday, February 17, 2012

Amanda Hogue-Lavallee, the youth librarian at the Hollis Social Library, has come up with a good plan to ensure parents of “tweens” can find books that they deem suitable for their kids to read: “The Clean Reads for Tweens and Younger Teens Pamphlet.”

The pamphlet she created will help parents of those kids who are now too old for “little kids’” books, but obviously not old enough for things Mom and Dad might read. As Hogue-Lavallee described them in last week’s Journal:

“They are not teenagers yet, but they are at that awkward stage where things suddenly are labeled as cool or uncool,” and that includes books.

Her pamphlet includes tips that, on the surface, appear to be pretty obvious but they are things that we don’t always think about in the heat of the moment, i.e., when Johnny is grabbing book after book and just handing them to you. They are tips like “Read the summary,” which could give a clue about the level of, for instance, violence in a book. Or you could “take the book home and read it yourself,” although given how busy parents say they are, that’s unlikely, but still a good idea.

Our favorite part of her list of tips is No. 7:

“If all else fails, take a leap of faith and let them read it ... Your child will know what they can and cannot handle. Encourage them to come to you and talk about the book if they have any questions. Have them read it out loud to you so you can discuss any themes or situations together.”

That is indeed a leap of faith and presupposes that either the library as an entity, or Hogue-Lavallee as the youth librarian, have done some of the work for you, i.e., vetting some of the books and making decisions about what might be appropriate for a 12-year-old. Some of us might disagree with their points of view, particularly those of us who believe our kids can handle just about anything, but in an age when some people will complain about almost anything, better to be a little bit safe, if you work in a library. Parents and their kids can always request a specific book and we doubt that any librarian would say, “No, you can’t have it because we don’t think it’s appropriate for your child’s age.”

In other words, if Jenny wants it and you don’t see it, ask. Not everyone is going to be enamoured of this pamphlet idea because there are those among us who think everything should be available to everyone, even kids, but choice is better than no choice and this pamphlet idea falls into the choice category.

Good for Hogue-Lavallee, good for the Hollis Social Library.