I live and breathe children\u2019s books as a Children\u2019s Librarian. I host a family book club, I coordinate our school district\u2019s Battle of the Books, I place monthly book orders, and I read children\u2019s books in my free time because I enjoy them. None of this literary knowledge populates in my brain when a patron asks me for help finding a book that they might enjoy reading. When I\u2019m working on the children\u2019s desk or walking the shelves, I wait in nail biting anticipation for this question because I\u2019m afraid that I won\u2019t have the perfect title to suggest and that it will make it look like I don\u2019t know how to do my job.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I care about reader\u2019s advisory because it is an artful skill that\u2019s essential for fostering a lifelong love of reading and promoting curiosity. Reader\u2019s Advisory is not only about being well-read, it\u2019s also about knowing how to provide patrons with choices. Young patrons, especially, might not have the most helpful answers to the typical questions like \u201cwhat do you like to read about?\u201d or \u201cwhat\u2019s the last book you really enjoyed?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I have found two simple tricks to ease my anxiety about stepping into the important role of being a literary guide for our young patrons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There\u2019s a simple question that I ask young patrons that unlocks a lot of information: \u201cDo you like reading about real or imagined things?\u201d Their answer pushes me toward either the fiction shelves or the nonfiction shelves. Their answer sends me looking for either fantasy or realistic books. If the child\u2019s caregiver is with them, they often offer up more information at this point, as well. For example, \u201cOh, he loves reading about sharks\u201d or \u201cShe loved the Nancy Drew books.\u201d In my experience, this question splits the overwhelming vastness of children\u2019s literature in half, and helps young patrons understand how to better describe their reading preferences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The other simple trick that I\u2019ve found invaluable is to take some space away from the anticipating eyes of the patron. I\u2019ll say something like, \u201cI\u2019m having a hard time thinking of specific titles. Let me walk around the shelves and see what sparks my memory.\u201d This moment to walk the shelves allows me to collect my thoughts and see the titles that my brain couldn\u2019t conjure under pressure. The other perk to this trick is that I can pull a few books off the shelves and return to the patrons with several choices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My fellow librarians and I joke that people think we sit around and read all day. Since that isn\u2019t the reality of our jobs, we can\u2019t be expected to know our collections backwards and forwards and backwards again. When Reader\u2019s Advisory questions come up, we might feel like we should have a card catalog in our minds, but the pressure to have that knowledge immediately accessible only makes it harder to serve the patron. Instead, we can use skills and tools to give our patrons choices while still maintaining professionalism as well as the image of a magical literary guide who can find anyone the perfect book.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I live and breathe children\u2019s books as a Children\u2019s Librarian. I host a family book club, I coordinate our school district\u2019s Battle of the Books, I place monthly book orders, and I read children\u2019s books in my free time because I enjoy them. None of this literary knowledge populates in my brain when a patron asks me for help finding a book that they might enjoy reading. When I\u2019m working on the children\u2019s desk or walking the shelves, I wait in nail biting anticipation for this question because I\u2019m afraid that I won\u2019t have the perfect title to suggest and that it will make it look like I don\u2019t know how to do my job. I care about reader\u2019s advisory because it is an artful skill that\u2019s essential for fostering a lifelong love of reading and promoting curiosity. Reader\u2019s Advisory is not only about being well-read, it\u2019s also about knowing…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":176,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":"","_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":""},"categories":[287,210,1614],"tags":[189,741,764,534],"class_list":["post-30354","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogger-school-age-programs-and-services-committee","category-books-2","category-knowledge-curation-and-management-of-materials","tag-books","tag-childrens-librarians","tag-public-library","tag-readers-advisory"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30354","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/176"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30354"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30354\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30354"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30354"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30354"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Trisha Parsons is the Children and Family Services Librarian at the Clearview Library District. In addition to school outreach programs, she facilitates a family book club and a homeschool group.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"