Living up to the quote attributed to Edison “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” we librarians try to find ways that we can get books into the hands of our students that will be “the one(s)” that set up them up for reading success. Today features some of the 100s of ways of trying to engage students in the books in our collections.

Some of our students are very concerned about finding “appropriate” books for their culture and families, and these posters help them find these. Over the week I think about 5 or 6 students that I was helping took up the offer of using the posters to find books – there may be more helped by my assistants, so I consider that a win – now to try another 9,900 ways to reach the other students!

It’s been a very busy week of books, between visits from all our middle school students to the library in order to get books for the three week winter break, and a book sale from an external vendor there are many opportunities. We’re in the fortunate position to be able to offer unlimited borrowing to all students with “clean” accounts (no overdues). Unfortunately the take-up this year both for “free” library checkouts and “paid” purchase checkouts has been lower than in previous years. This is in line with what is being seen world-wide – the latest statistics just coming in from the British Literacy Trust showing that only around 30% of young people report finding reading a pleasurable activity – the lowest since they started gathering data.

I’ve been working very closely with our ELA department on making reading an expectation and we’re really hoping to move that needle in our community. We’ve already started as a middle grade working on our “core collection lists” for 25-26 and I’m happy to say following the initiative of involving the whole community – not just the English teachers are responding to my request for critique and suggestions for next year!

As you can see selections don’t happen in a vacuum, and we International Librarians talk to each other – good books are good books no matter where you’re living. Other books are chosen to reflect the communities the schools are situated in – for example I try to have at least one book with a Muslim or middle eastern protagonist in each age group.

Here are 4 posters for our Grade 6 / 11 year olds – the G6 protagonists poster, our G6 core collection selection, the same for Year 7 at Tanglin Trust School (thanks Katie Day) and Oberoi International School’s OIS Reads! Middle Grade poster (thanks Sarah Ducharme). If you have a poster you’d like displayed, please get hold of me and I’m happy to include it.

By Nadine Bailey – middle school teacher librarian, currently living and working in Dubai, formerly in Beijing China, Singapore and a bunch of other cities around the world. Passionate about our students seeing themselves and their worlds in literature and developing curiosity and a passion for reading and learning.

The views, opinions, and thoughts expressed in this blog post are solely my own and do not reflect the positions, policies, or opinions of any current or former employer. Any references or examples provided are intended for informational purposes only and should not be construed as endorsements or official statements from any organization I have been associated with.

The views, opinions, and thoughts expressed in this blog post are solely my own and do not reflect the positions, policies, or opinions of any current or former employer. Any references or examples provided are intended for informational purposes only and should not be construed as endorsements or official statements from any organization I have been associated with.