Summer Reading: Suggested is Hot, Required is Not.
By Joe Ann Barton-Hinrichs
District Administration ( 60), May 2003.
www.districtadministration.com
Whether it’s due to the wizardry in Harry Potter or the racial slurs in Huckleberry Finn, attempts at censorship are common occurrences in schools today. This may be one impetus for changes in summer reading programs.
Summer reading is designed to keep students mentally engaged, but administrators are re-thinking the process. They’re often hesitant to publish a required reading list because it can be interpreted that the district endorses each book on the list, explains Charles Suhor, a National Council of Teachers of English spokesman on censorship.
Instead, schools are more likely to provide “suggested” summer reading lists. This method offers students and parents the built-in freedom to avoid books that offend or simply don’t interest them.
The book selection process itself may also be a critical step in eliminating controversy. Librarian Pat Scales, author of Teaching Banned Books (American Library Association, 2001), advocates establishing a committee of stakeholders, including the school librarian, parents, teachers and community members, to review books and make recommendations. This type of collaboration keeps the lines of communication open.
“Every school district should have a current policy and procedure in place that clearly defines how books for the library and materials for use in the classroom are selected. This way, when a book is challenged, the administration has a way to defend and explain,” says Beverly Becker, associate director of the Office for Intellectual Freedom of American Library Association. Often these procedures aren’t in place prior to a conflict or challenge.
Most important, however, is fostering the joy of independent reading through summer reading. Scales says, “We need to be pleased that students are reading at all and do whatever we can to encourage them.”
A collection of suggested summer reading booklists can be found on ALA’s web site. www.ala.org, www.ncte.org