"Great Books for the Teen"

Two of the duties I get to perform at Columbus Public Library are Reader’s Advisor and ordering the fiction for our collection. One of the sections of the fiction section happens to be “Young Adult”.

There are endless websites, anthologies, catalogs, and publisher ads that are very helpful. But, the best resource that I’ve happened to run across is a new book by Anita Silvey. She’s the author of “100 Best Books for Children” and former editor of the magazine, “Horn Book”.

“500 Great Books for TEENS” was just released in October of 2006. It’s divided into twenty-one sections, including adventure and survival, politics and social history, horror, romance, war and conflict, fantasy, plays, graphic novels, poetry, memoir, and spirituality. Every section offers up classics, but the majority of titles are new. In “Beyond the 500,” Silvey compiles a number of useful lists; including books organized by geographic location and historical period, as well as recommended audio books.

This is the book to consult if you are looking for a book to give to a teenage reader. Until now, there’s been no accepted guide to what’s good, bad, or indifferent in the flood of books coming off the presses in the hot new category of young adult publishing. If it’s true that you can’t judge a book by its cover, it is especially true for teen books, as publishers take aim at a new class of readers. The books land on shelves without a history, and there is no standard by which to judge them.

Anita Silvey, one of the nation’s leading authorities on books for young people, has interviewed teenage readers all over the country and immersed herself in young adult books, with an emphasis on books published in the last five years. The result is this invaluable and very readable guide for parents, teachers, librarians, booksellers, reading groups, and of course, teens themselves.

With its extended essays describing 500 selections, parents and relatives will quickly see what their teenagers are actually reading--- and will be able to find good books to introduce them to. Teachers can spot excellent additions to summer reading lists. Booksellers can move customers from one favorite to a host of others in the same genre. Librarians can round out collections. Book groups --- for adults, teens, or both ---will have hundreds of new titles to consider.

Columbus Public Library owns quite a few wonderful reference books that would appeal to all of the types of people listed above. Check out the Dewey area: 028.1 through 028.5. Here are just a few of the titles I ran across as I was researching this article. “Comics to Classics: A Guide to Books for Teens and Preteens” by Arthea J. S. Reed; “The Book Book: a Compendium of Lists, Quizzes, & Trivia about Books” by Steven Gilbar; “Battle of the Books: the Curriculum Debate In America” by James Atlas; “Reading Lists for College-Bound Students” 3rd edition is edited by Doug Estell, Michele L. Satchwell, and Patricia S. Wright; “Great Books for High School Kids: A Teachers’ Guide to Books That Can Change Teens’ Lives” Edited by Rick Ayers and Amy Crawford.

Columbus Public Library has a wonderful website that our Director, Bob Trautwein, keeps fresh and new. If you haven’t had a chance to check it out, please take a few moments and go to --- www.columbuslibrary.info Once you’ve arrived, I’d love for you to see my web page. It’s listed under Services. Then look for “Reader’s Advisor”. If you need help, call 402/564-7116 ext. 2 That website will also allow you to peruse our catalog online. It might confuse you at first, because there’s a spot that says you can put in a USER ID and a PIN number. Just ignore that, and move down the page a little bit and you’ll see where you can enter a word or phrase, an authors name, title, etc. Have fun, and visit all the unique and interesting pages on our website.