9364 Week 2: Reading Response #1

For this week's reading response, I decided to focus on Claire Snowball's article “Teenagers Talking about Reading and Libraries."

What struck me the most about this article is that it appeared to focus on something that I feel has always been obvious to me: teens have a wide array in reading tastes and reading habits. Too often I find people make broad assumptions about the reading tastes of teens (the most common of these has been, in my personal experience, “boys are often reluctant readers” – assumptions about reading habits and tastes in teens often seems to hinge on gender, a myth that this article thankfully dispels, I think.) The findings of the focus group described in the article demonstrates that making these kinds of assumptions is pointless because no teen fits into one mold; there are certainly commonalities to be found, but from what I understood, there was no trends that occurred throughout all or even most of the participants.

There were some smaller trends, such as non-readers admitting that they would reading some books, but only if it dealt with subject matter they were interested in. Again, this only highlights the breadth of taste that teen readers have, as well as highlighting the variety of habits. I also appreciated the discussion on the variety of materials teens will read, and how the author never demeans the reading of magazines or the Internet – they present it as a legitimate material for teens to be reading, and I think that teens should be encouraged to read no matter the format. The fact that many people only perceive the reading of books as ‘legitimate’ reading is highlighted by many of the participants who described themselves as non-readers by in actuality read a lot of magazines.

The focus on teens’ reactions to reading graphic novels was also of interest to me. Oftentimes, graphic novels are perceived as gateways to reading for young reluctant readers, but this article, in continuing with the running theme of variety in reading habits and tastes, debunks this common myth. There was a broad range of reactions to graphic novels, reflecting the variety of reading habits and tastes in teens. You can’t categorize or compartmentalize them; just as many reluctant readers in the study were not interested in reading graphic novels then those who were, and vice-versa with avid readers.

Librarians should make note of this wide variety of reading preferences in teen readers and use it to help with collection development. If librarians make broad assumptions about teens and what they read, it could hinder their collections and potentially drive teen readers away. By focusing on having variety in their collections, they could potentially attract all kinds of teen readers and help break stereotypes about teens and their reading.


Works Cited:

Snowball, Claire. 2008. “Teenagers Talking about Reading and Libraries.” Australian Academic and Research Libraries 39(2): 106-18.