Talk to Teens

Talk to Teens
John Caron

For this assignment 3 teens were interviewed from my hometown, North Andover, Massachusetts. The town has 5 elementary schools, 1 muddle and a high school. St.Michaels is a Catholic School grades k-8. There is a private boarding school, Brooks, and a 4 year college, Merrimack in town.It is predominately middle to upper class. The town library, Stevens Memorial, recently underwent major renovations and is located 200 yards from my residence.Alexandra,16, Julia, 13, and Bijan, 14, are residents of the town and students in the public school system.

Margie Troy is the Library Media Specialist at the Greater Lawrence Regional Vocational Technical High School(Voke) in West Andover, Massachusetts and has served in that capacity for 9 years. The Voke has 1400 students. Four towns are represented in the student body: Lawrence 83% , Methuen 15%, Andover 1% and North Andover 1%. The student body mainly comes from predominately lower to middle income.The school is 80% Hispanic however major emphasis is in English.
The Voke started in 1970 and the new library is 5 years old. The school recently underwent major renovations. The school is geared towards teaching students trades such as cooking &culinary, automotive, woodworking and house building and hair, for example.There are 9 computer terminals in the library which has a collection size of 20,000. The Walter Markham library is also open during lunch and for a half hour after school. Margie and two other staff members provide mentoring for students having difficulty . There are 2 adjustment counselors for students who are on probation(for failing) within school. Margie stated that “there is emergency counseling with guidance counselors who will refer students to counseling outside of school. The Greater Lawrence Family Health Center operates a clinic within school and has counseling available during school hours.” Students are welcome to visit the main office after school hours.

Margie meets with the freshman each year during their Title 1 Reading Enrichment Class. She shows them ten books and reads from the jackets. At the end of the session the students are free to browse and check out books. All ten of the books she shows are taken out by students. She has spent 25 years working with teens in both public and school settings.

She consults School Library Journal, Kliatt, Voya, Teen Genreflecting, YALSA and some award winners. She buys mostly paperback due to cost however will by a “hot” title in hardcover. She buys 5 copies every year of Go Ask Alice, A Child Called It and the Lost Boy. Students at the Voke want to read about peers with terrible lives perhaps to help them make them feel better about their own situations.These titles are in constant demand and oftentimes disappear from the library. “One of the biggest problems that I have is not having duplicate copies of some titles.”

From Margie I learned that teens at the Voke want to follow the reading lists of their friends.The Pact is very popular at the Voke. The students like mob books and have taken a liking to the Godfather, Donnie Brasco and Wiseguys. Horror (R.L Stine and Stephen King) are very popular. Make Lemonade is required reading by the freshman.
For mysteries Joan Lowery Nixon is popular but Agatha Christie is not. “The kids will read Nicholas Sparks and the Love Stories. The demand for science fiction is not high but it exists,” she added.

“Kids don’t want to read ‘classics’ or ‘literature’. They are influenced by their peers and teachers they admire. One of the plumbing instructors reads popular authors like Robert Parker, Harlan Coben, Jeffrey Deaver and Michael Connelly. Whenever he finishes a book he has students waiting to read them because he has talked to the kids about the book,”she said.

The teen interests from a different environment seemed to differ. Each log resembles a DNA template of sorts and we can see through this exercise how each own of us is uniquely different. Each of the 3 teens has read Harry Potter however that is where the similarities end. Alexandra, for example, likes reading newspapers especially the Wall Street Journal along with the local paper, the North Andover Citizen.She started reading at 7:40 a.m. She is currently reading the Headmaster Ritual She believes that books have to be well written , not just about hot topics. She sometimes makes her selections from Oprah’s book list for teenagers. She likes to read the papers with her breakfast. She reads virtually everything but historical fiction. Contrary to what Margie Troy stated, she likes to read mystery and classics. Her favorite authors are Tobias Wolfe and David Mitchell. Her favorite book is Old School and she reads 10 hours per week. In addition to the Wall Street Journal she likes to read the New York Times, the Boston Globe and Newsweek. During the school year she reads primarily newspapers, aside from required reading, as she likes to keep informed. During vacations most of her time is spent reading books. She goes to the school library daily though she doesn’t always read there. She visits the town library on a weekly basis.
Unfortunately, during the school year she doesn’t have much time to read pleasure books as most of her time is spent reading required texts.

Dijan’s reading interests reflect a different template. He began his reading log a little later by reading “A Small Good Thing” by Carver and a paper by Steinbeck.
His sources include both required and pleasure reading and he does more reading than Alexandra. His sources vary from books and the internet to the blackboard, menus and a bulletin board. His topics vary from Latin to Gimple the Fool. He checks his email throughout the day. Bijan is also interested in the classics along with science fiction.His favorite author is Michael Moore. His favorite books are Lord of the Rings, Otherland, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and the Stand. He reads between 35-40 hours per week and likes to read almost anything except for blogs. He spends most of his time reading books “because they are more fun and meaningful than anything else” and homework related reading. He visits the school library several times a day and the town library biweekly. He does not get to do much pleasure reading during the school year.

Julia’s reading day began at 6:27 a.m reading a magazine. She does not check her email as frequently as Dijan.Most of her day is spent studying math and biology and doing related work in these subjects. She likes to read science fiction, mythology and adventure stories. Her favorite author is JR Tolkien. Her favorite books are the Hobbit and the Red Wall series. She reads approximately 2-3 hours per day or 17 hours per week. She enjoys reading mostly books because they are the “most information” and other sources bore her quickly. She visits the school library every day and the public library once a month. Her most recent book read is 37 Short Mysteries.

The ten books showed to them were:
Al Capone Does my Shirts
Flush
The Outcasts of 19 Schuyler Place
Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy
So B. It
Lush
The Clique
NBA’s Greatest
Ripley’s Believe it or Not
Street Love

Both Bijan and Julia have read Al Capone Does my Shirts. Julia thought is strange how they would put Alcatraz and an autistic girl together. Bijan said, “it was decent but a little confused.”He had not read any of the other titles but said Flush sounded “intriguing”. The Outcasts sounded “boring” along with Lizzie Bright. So B. It sounded “generic”. Julia hasn’t read Flush but has read other titles by the same author. Lizzie Bright sounded interesting and she dislikes “chick books”. Of So B. IT she said, “It seems the author has a lame plot but can put it into good words.” Lush sounds “lame” and she dislikes sport books. Street Love sounds “intriguing” to her.

Alexandra would not read Al Capone looking at the cover as she’s not interested in mob books. She would not be interested in reading Flush after looking at the cover and reading the jacket. She said she might read the Outcasts because she has read other works buy the author. In regards to So B. It she said she might read it but it could be “too over done.” She has read Ripley’s but does not believe it is literature. Out of all the topics she would read Flush.

Margie informed me that her teen students tended to go with the flow when it came to reading.They like to read what their friends read at the Voke or what popular teachers or mentors recommend. Teens at the Voke like to read topics in which peers are having difficulty.

The teens I interviewed seemed to have a vast array of sources they liked to read and titles. This ranged from the simple North Andover Citizen, emails and menus to the Wall Street Journal and Latin Texts. The titles of their books varied as two liked classics which is not popular at the Voke. Some started reading very early whereas one started reading later. Though they had not read most of the titles I showed them they seemed willing to try after seeing covers and reading jackets. The teens I interviewed seemed more self motivated towards making selections for pleasure reading on their own whereas the teens at the Voke, according to Margie, tend to read what other students are reading.
This assignment taught me that there are several common denominators amongst teen readers just as there are differences. One subject I interviewed but did not use reads Mad Magazine on a regular basis. I used to read Mad religiously 25 years ago. While the students at the Voke have a broad interest in reading, the teens I interviewed seemed to have a broader one. As I said while there are similarities there are many differences as reflected in their logs and through the interview. I learned that teens are active and eager readers who embrace their freedom to choose when selecting what to read. Showing them books helps greatly when influencing their choices of what to read and what not to read as is demonstrated by Margie with the freshman class each year and by showing teens the YALSA titles. The teens I showed the books to were willing to try some of the titles The teens I spoke with seemed a little more open minded than the ones Margie described at the Voke.This is probably do to cultural differences where at the Voke many are Hispanic trying to Americanize and in need of guidance by peers and faculty. I am glad that teen reading is alive and well. I learned that their reading sources and interests are quite different with the ones I interviewed whereas with the director they seemed quite similar