Posts Tagged ‘book awards’

22
Jul
2021

What books are ‘hot’ for 7-11 year olds?

categories: ETL507 Professional Experience and Portfolio

As a teacher librarian I am constantly making informal observations about students’ reading habits and choices. At the end of every school year I also run extensive data to see what my students are reading and borrowing. I use some of this data to create infographics (see below) which serve as part of a library report and I use a lot of this information to drive collection development.

     

A few months ago I was approached by Professor Chin Ee Loh from the National Institute of Education (NIE) in Singapore to work on a research project. We have worked together with one one of her PhD students, Suijia Gan, to analyse the reading habits and practices of the students in my Junior School Library. This project has allowed me to delve deeper than I ever have into students’ reading habits and a lot of the results have confirmed what I know but it is useful to have hard data to back up this knowledge. But there have also been some surprises. Our project has involved a mixed methods research study that has involved a digital survey which was completed by 761 students (84% of the junior school), focus group interviews and analysing data using Follet Destiny, our library management system. We are working on finalising the report now and we are hoping to get some articles published with some of the results. For now though, I wanted to blog some of the findings to show what has been ‘hot’ in my library this year.

There are lists below that could be useful lists for library staff to use to develop their library collections. However, I think it is important to understand the context of the library and students. My school is an International School in Singapore with British Independent school values. The students represent up to 50 different nationalities with the largest representation from the UK, Australia, Japan, China and Korea. A different school in a different country or the same country with a different socio economic group or ethnic diversity would have some different preferences. However these lists do seem to have many titles that can transcend cultural and economic barriers. In the survey, the students were asked the name of the best book or series they read this year and the table below has the top titles. There are approximately 220 students in each year group so these tiles were all very popular.

My favourite book this year was …

Number Year 3  Year 4  Year 5  Year 6
1. Harry Potter Harry Potter Alex Rider Rooftoppers
2. Dog Man Amulet Keeper of the Lost Cities Wonder
3. Diary of a Wimpy Kid Diary of a Wimpy Kid Wonder HarryPotter
4. Mr Wolfs Class AlexRider The Explorer The Explorer
5. Minecraft Percy Jackson Harry Potter Keeperof the Lost Cities
6. The Babysitters Club Daisy series Code Name Bananas The Insignificant Events in the Life of a Cactus
7. The Bad Guys Bunny Vs Monkey Nevermoor Alex Rider
8. Weird But True DogMan Percy Jackson Nevermoor
9. Tom Gates Keeper of the Lost Cities Skulduggery Pleasant Rain Reign
10. Beatrice Zinker Narwhal and Jelly Tom Gates The Heroes of  Olympus
11. Mr Penguin Smile Treehouse A Series Of Unfortunate Events
12. Narwhal and Jelly The Babysitters Club A Tale of Magic Divergent
13. Captain Underpants 13 Storey Treehouse Series Diary of a Wimpy Kid Front Desk
14. Cat Kid Comic Club Weird But True Dog Man Percy Jackson
15. Dragon Realm A Series Of Unfortunate Events Kensy and Max Save me a Seat
16. Hilo Diary of a Minecraft Zombie The Insignificant Events in the Life of a Cactus Skulduggery Pleasant
17. Kensy And Max Drama The Babysitters Club 13 Storey Treehouse Series
18. Lunch Lady Emily Windsnap The Land of Stories A Tale of Magic
19. Malory Towers Fake News, True or False Quiz book The Terrible Two Code Name Bananas
20. Smile Goth Girl Demon Slayer Murder Most Unladylike

From this data, I discovered some interesting findings that can be seen in the two tables below. It is worth pointing out that these findings are from the top 20 favourite books.

  • Humour was a genre that appealed to more younger students and as they matured this decreased and their preferences were for adventure, mystery and realistic fiction.
  • It was interesting to view the data on realistic fiction and also hear what some of the older students commented on in the focus group interviews. Many commented about how their reading preferences changed as they matured. We often have requests from year 6s for ‘more sad books’ or ‘books about someone who is struggling with an issue’.
  • This table shows how in year 6 the top favourite books are all junior fiction and in year three the most popular format was graphic novels. It is worth noting that graphic novels are still very popular with our year 6 students so this is not an indication of borrowing data, just preferences for the book that was their favourite.

Genres of favourite books 

Formats of favourite books 

Graphic novels (or comics) were an area of huge interest to me because their popularity has grown enormously in my library. This is a widespread trend that publishers, book sellers and librarians are observing. It is also an interesting topic that Chin Ee Loh asked me and a number of others to speak about in her How We Read podcast. The table below shows how despite continuing to grow this part of my library collection, the demand is enormous. I have put in a massive order of graphic novels to arrive for our new school year.

Graphic Novels in the Junior School Library

Another piece of data I ran from Destiny was the top 50 borrowed books.

The Top 10 Books Borrowed from the Junior School Library 2020-2021

No. Circulations Title Author(s) Format Genre Series
1. 244 Mr. Wolf’s Class Book 1 Steinke, Aron Nels graphic novel animals yes
2. 230 Guts Telgemeier, Raina graphic novel realistic yes
3. 190 Kensy and Max 1 : Breaking News Harvey, Jacqueline junior fiction mystery yes
4. 182 The Baby-sitters club 7, Boy-crazy Stacey Galligan, Gale graphic novel realistic yes
5. 169 Mr Penguin and The Lost Treasure 1 Smith, Alex T early fiction adventure/animals yes
6. 167 The Baby-sitters club 1, Kristy’s        great idea Telgemeier, Raina graphic novel realistic yes
7. 166 George and the Great Bum Stampede Wilson, Cal early fiction humour yes
8. 166 White bird : a wonder story Palacio, R. J. graphic novel historical fiction no – companion book
9. 158 Ni De Qin Qi Hao Qi Guai : Your Relatives Are Weird! Woo Yen Yen & Colin Goh picture book/graphic novel humour yes
10. 153 Narwhal : Unicorn Of The Sea Clanton, Ben graphic novel humour/animals yes

The table above shows just the top 10 but this data from the top 50 had some interesting findings that help to reassure me that all the work we do to help students discover new titles is working.

  • Students enjoy books in a series! 84% of the books were part of a series. Most that were not in a series are written by an author who has written other popular titles.
  • Recent releases are popular! 94% of titles were published 2015 or later and all are from 2010.
  • Comics are King! 68% of the books in this list are graphic novels/comics (this includes the Little Dim Sum Warriors series which are bilingual comics in a picture book format), 16% are junior fiction (middle grade chapter books) and non fiction and early fiction (emerging chapter books) make up 8% each.
  • Students love humour! Genres: 46% were humorous, 30% are realistic fiction(including historical fiction which can be considered a form of realistic fiction), 14% were adventure of mystery and 10% were animal fiction.
  • Book awards and events raise awareness for new and different titles! At our school we have events related to The Red Dot Book Award and Dulwich Information Book Award. The library buys up to 10 copies of these tiles and students are encouraged to read at least one red dot book a year. The school hosts a red dot book competition, which involves students working in teams to answer questions about the books. In the top 50 most borrowed books there were 18 Red Dot Books. It is also worth noting we buy multiple copies of these titles so it is easier for students to get access to them.
  • Author talks build the reading culture! Colin Goh did an author and Illustrator talk and after this his Little Dim Sum Warrior books flew off the shelves. They were also a fun option for students to borrow in mandarin library lesson time. Also in the top 50 list were 3 other authors who have done author talks in the last 2 years: Jaqueline Harvey, Dusti Bowling and Andy Griffiths.
  • Book promotion works! All titles in this list are either graphic novels (which have needed no promotion) or been promoted in some other way. The rest have been promoted through author talks or book awards.

The feedback from the focus group interviews is also very interesting to analyse but that will be for another post. Hopefully this post has given readers some suggestions on ‘what’s hot’ to help develop library collections for this age group.

19
Apr
2020

The Dulwich Information Book Award (DIBAS)

categories: ETL402 Literature Across the Curriculum

A book award that I am very proud of is The Dulwich Information Book Award (DIBAS) that was created in 2016 by the library staff from the various International Dulwich Colleges. The idea came about at a conference we hosted at Dulwich College (Singapore) when one of our teacher librarians, Patricia Chandler, suggested we create a book award across the College network. Many of us had been involved in book awards that focussed mostly on fiction, including the Red Dot Book Awards and we decided to focus this award on information books.  The ongoing aim is to highlight good quality non-fiction books in both English and Mandarin and promote them across our schools. The intention of the award is to encourage a wider reading of non-fiction and provide a focus for critical evaluation of content and design. In 2017 we launched our first selection and we are currently in the process of shortlisting for our fourth year. The DIBAS has been very popular with students and staff at Dulwich College (Singapore) and has kept the library staff busy in looking for excellent examples of non-fiction. The result of this has been a high interest in these titles by students and teachers and a focus of teaching and learning about the different types of non-fiction. At the end of the article, I have included all shortlisted and winning titles

Dulwich Information Book Award Information

  • The award runs across 3 age ranges (DUCKS 2-7 years, Junior 7-11 years and Senior 12-18 years)
  • Mandarin and English books can be selected
  • Non-fiction to tie-in with National-Non-fiction November
  • 6 titles maximum shortlisted in each age range

Criteria for choosing books

  • Must be able to view prior to (from libraries, bookshops and so on) or we will need to ask a recommender to submit a book
  • Excludes textbooks
  • Aesthetics (including design, style, and integration of text and graphics in the book)
  • Accurate and up-to-date
  • Age-appropriate
  • Appropriate for Second Language
  • Available from our suppliers
  • ISBN and authenticity verified
  • Published in the last 3 years
  • Nominations not accepted from publishers

Book Award Timeline

  • Appeal for longlist to DCI teachers/staff/librarians/students/parents – nominations requested in April
  • Shortlisting early May by teacher librarians, students and teachers in all participating Colleges
  • Introduction of books and related activities from mid-September
  • Students and staff vote and results announced across the Dulwich network in Non-Fiction November
  • Authors notified if their book wins

Our longlist for the 2020 award is here and we welcome additions. This will close at the end of April.

Shortlists from Previous Years

Behind the Books: The Non-fiction Family Tree

, an award-winning author of more than 180 non-fiction books for children, has developed a Non-fiction Family Tree in an effort to understand the various kinds of non- fiction and the interplay among them. We use these categories to choose a diverse range of information books. From my point of view as the Junior School (year 3-6) teacher librarian I also use this with my year 5’s and 6’s when I teach them about the different kinds of non-fiction. Also, when shortlisting we try to include a diverse range of topics and select information books from a variety of topics. I often include teaching about the Dewey Decimal Number for the book and then highlight similar titles from that area of Dewey. For example last year I was very keen to include an art book and worked closely with the art teacher to add a selection of art books to the long list.

My personal experience and reflections

Gill (2009) discusses that no other genre of children’s literature has changed as radically in recent years as nonfiction and McNeill (2015) shares an interesting article about the trends in non-fiction for young readers here. What I have enjoyed most in the shortlisting process is enjoying the incredible non-fiction titles that are published today, which are very different to traditional non-fiction books where each title had a similar format. They usually had a contents page, index and glossary and each page would include a subheading, text boxes, photographs and chunks of facts. Whilst these books are still very useful the design of a lot of current non-fiction is very different and can include contemporary illustration and design. There are many titles now that appear to cross over between fiction and non-fiction and are produced to look more like a picture book, even if they include real stories or facts.  Morris (2013) discusses these ‘hybrid’ books and poses the question, where should they be located in a library? In my library, we have recently genrefied our picture book area and two of the included genres are narrative non-fiction and information picture books.

My recent reading for ETL402 has included reading about literary non-fiction which can also be called creative non-fiction, faction or narrative non-fiction. This format of non-fiction uses literacy techniques usually associated with fiction to report on people, places and events and often includes biographies. Damaso (2011) includes more explanation here. The increase in narrative nonfiction and the popularity of this genre has been huge in my library. In fact, for the first two years the winners in the Junior School were narrative non-fiction titles. These stories are also excellent resources for embedding literacy learning into the curriculum.

And the Winners are…

My Top 5 for Junior School students (7-11 year olds)

Other non- fiction book awards

References

Damaso, J. (2011). Elements of creative nonfiction [Slideshare]. Retrieved from https://www.slideshare.net/damaso2/elements-of-creative-non-fiction

Gill, S. R. (2009). What Teachers Need to Know About the “New” Nonfiction. Reading Teacher, 63(4), 260–267. https://doi-org.ezproxy.csu.edu.au/10.1598/RT.63.4.1

McNeill, S. (2015, October). Moment of truth: Trends in nonfiction for young readers. Retrieved from http://authornews.penguinrandomhouse.com/moment-of-truth-trends-in-nonfiction-for-young-readers/

Morris, R. J. (2013). Linking learning and literary nonfiction. School Library Monthly, 29(7), 39-40. Retrieved from https://search-proquest-com.ezproxy.csu.edu.au/docview/1492222115?accountid=10344

Stewart, M. (2007, December 13). The 5 kinds of nonfiction [Blog post]. Retrieved from https://celebratescience.blogspot.com/2017/12/ behind-books-nonfiction-family-tree.html

16
Mar
2020

Thinking about diversity: shortlisting titles for the Red Dot Book Award

categories: ETL402 Literature Across the Curriculum

One of the things I enjoy most about being a teacher librarian is reading widely and being recommended great reads. I particularly enjoy being involved in the selection of the books for the Red Dot Award which is organised by The International Schools Library Network Singapore. Singapore is often referred to as the little red dot because we are a tiny dot on the world map, yet here in this island country, there is remarkable cultural diversity.

There are four categories for the award:

  • Early Years (ages 3–7)
  • Younger Readers (ages 7–10)
  • Older Readers (ages 10-14)
  • Mature Readers (ages 14-adult)

Shortlisted titles from recent children’s literature are chosen by a committee of teacher-librarians with the goal of offering a range of books from around the world. We look for diversity in:

  • genres selected
  • formats – we try to include one graphic novel and one non-fiction book in each category
  • cultures/countries represented by the characters and of the authors, illustrators AND publishers
  • the genders of the protagonist

Why is this important?

Hwang & Hindman (2014, p. 46) propose that “Multicultural literature teaches children about their heritage and the pride of their past. The illustrations, gender roles, and the language of the group should be accurate to represent the culture appropriately.” For their self esteem and sense of identity, all children need to see themselves, their family and their friends reflected in some of the books they read. My previous blog post on Why reading is important I wrote about Rudine Sims Bishop’s brilliant windows and mirrors metaphor. I also shared an amazing TED Talk where Chimamanda Adichie talks about the danger of a single story where she warns that if we hear only a single story about another person or country, we risk a critical misunderstanding. One of my favourite organisations is Room to Read who support school libraries and girls education in the developing world. They also understand the importance of readers looking in mirrors and identifying themselves in the books they read. They produce books that are written and illustrated by local talent in the countries where they work.

Diversity of gender is also so important and I wrote about this further in Children’s Literature, past, present and future. With regards to our process for longlisting and shortlisting the Red Dot books we actually create a table that indicates all of these elements of diversity and we often end up in very heated discussions over which very high quality books we have to omit. Sometimes it is because we have too many female protagonists, sometimes it is because we have too many books from the UK or US and sometimes it is because we have more than one book from that particular genre. I am involved in choosing the older and younger readers category and often realistic fiction seems to have too many good offerings. The process is quite long and lengthy, but it is one that ensures the library staff are looking out for and reading lots of different content that does not always come from mainstream publishers.

I thought I would finish this blog post by sharing some of my absolute favourite Red Dot Books from the four years I have been involved. Just last week we almost finished finalising our shortlists for the 2020-2021 selection. Go to the red dot site above to read more about what we do in our schools to promote these books and also for the new lists which should be coming soon. You may also be interested in these three other book awards created by teacher librarians in International Schools from within Asia, Panda Book Awards, Bangkok Book Awards and the Hong Kong Golden Dragon.

Favourite Red Dot Books so far:

Early Years: Room on Our Rock, The Invisible Boy, Molly and Mae and 7 ate 9

Younger Readers: The Elephant, Stories for Kids Who Dare to Be Different, The Happiness Box, Ida Always, A Boy Called Bat, The House on Silat Road and Mango and Bambang

Older Readers: Illegal, Finding Wonders, The Goldfish Boy, Secrets of Singapore, The 1000 year old boy, Posted,  Front Desk, Save Me a Seat, The Thing About Jellyfish, Insignificant Events in the Life of a Cactus and Sachiko

It was hard to just limit to these titles and I am afraid I could not suggest for the mature readers because I am not yet mature enough to read these texts…

References

Hwang, S. & Hindman, J. T. (2014). Strategies for adoption children’s refugee literature in the multicultural classroom. Journal of Arts and Humanities, 3(12), 42-53. Retrieved from https://www.theartsjournal.org/index.php/site