In my current school context, I believe we do have a balanced collection. We have a healthy budget, so we can get all the latest fiction titles in every genre and we have got all the genres covered. We regularly evaluate the collection to ensure that titles are weeded as they become outdated and irrelevant. I do believe we need to revisit the genres, however, as who even says “Ooh my favourite genre is Social Issues, I better head to that section!” Same goes for “Person-to-person”.
In any case, we seem to have non-fiction fairly covered for each of the assignment tasks also. However again, I think we could have a thorough look at what needs to be updated. I work in a Zionist school, and some of the books on Israel are so old. I understand it is difficult to acquire titles that are age-appropriate and up-to-date on this topic, however we definitely must do some research in this area!
I enjoyed the Crowley (2015) article about Graphic Novels, and completely agree that they are a great medium and enticing stepping stone into the world of literature for our reluctant readers. Sometimes it can be difficult to encourage students to have a balanced literary diet once they have discovered graphic novels … but this collection must be prioritised in the school library. We have a good collection, but again it could be given some more love.
Crowley (2015) mentioned getting involved with the Stan Less Excelsior Award for developing the graphic novel collection and it sounds like a wonderful idea except that I am not aware of anything similar in Australia. Our school was involved this year in the inaugural CBCA shadow judging competition. If there was a Book of the Year category for graphic novels, that would be an excellent start; it would encourage more local publishers to publish local graphic novels creators as well! We have brought graphic novels into our wide reading program as well, as mentioned in the article.
I also enjoyed Fleishhacker’s (2017) article suggesting titles of science books in a number of formats including science-based fiction and graphic novels, science-based novels, illustrated science biographies, science-based nonfiction graphic novel series. Fleishhacker (2017) says “A well-rounded library collection provides plenty of choices that will intrigue individual readers, encourage them to discover books that speak to their unique interests and needs, and allow them to chart their own personalised course through the process of acquiring knowledge.” I love this quote because it is through applying this idea to our collections that we can ensure that all our students feel seen and heard. And when our students can discover books they love, they will be on course to be a self-motivated reader and lifelong learner!
Jacobson’s (2016) article about censorship was interesting, as this has come up recently in my school. Many students were asking for the #BookTok sensation – Colleen Hoover’s It Ends with Us. Staff members were also asking for this title. I work in a faith-based school and it was deemed inappropriate for our collection due to several explicit sex scenes. I can understand the decision, and the students at our school would be able to buy the book from a shop, borrow it from the local library, or borrow it from each other. In many ways I felt it was a shame as the book had important messages in it around domestic abuse that I felt was beneficial for a teenage audience.
I think there is more book challenging in the USA because it is a more conservative country than Australia. I have not heard of a single book being challenged at my school. We do not have a policy or procedure regarding this, so it’s entirely possible it has not come up. We do have books on a range of identities, spread right throughout the collection.
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