The concept, “Don’t judge a book by its cover,” has been ingrained in me since childhood. I’m that type of voracious reader who will read anything thrust in my hands (note: this does not at all mean that I will like or will necessarily finish any book). Lately, I’ve read everything from a nonfiction book from the perspective of a undertaker to a silly children’s mystery that involves secret agent librarians. My mom recently told me a funny story that when I got the suggested summer reading list when I was going into high school, we went to the library together and got every book on the list that was available, about 25 in total, and I went home and started systematically reading every one.

That said, I still judge books by their covers. AS DO WE ALL.  You all know what I’m talking about–you’re looking for the “right” book to read and a cover catches your eye, so you pick up the book.  You might then read the back to decide if it really interests you, but I’ve noticed that kids often don’t even get to that second step. I think often, as teachers and parents and librarians and guardians, we so want kids to pick the just-right read and try to steer them gently away from books that are too old/too young/too babyish/too dark/too similar to what they have been reading/too ___________, that sometimes we forget that as adults we go through the same process, except that no one is (usually) telling us what we should and should not be doing.  That’s not to say that adult guidance is a bad thing, because I think it’s healthy to challenge kids, push their reading boundaries a little bit, and take into some consideration the appropriateness of a particular book. However, I think that kids need some room to decide what interests them. Particularly reluctant readers.

Which brings me to yesterday’s storytime at a shelter in Seattle. There were 4 kids who came (I’ll talk about what I think defines success in another blog post, because I would consider this a success, even if there were only a handful of kids). One girl loved the Lemony Snicket A Series of Unfortunate Events series (go read at least The Bad Beginning, if you haven’t) and I was able to find her a particular book in the series that she wanted. Another boy saw the books and decided he really wanted to take the eighth book in the series, even though he hasn’t read any. This other girl and I suggested he start with the first book, but he said, “this one looks better” and was utterly unconvinced that the first one would be any good. All based on the cover. What I ended up doing was having him take both the first one and the eighth one. I gave him the first book partly to appease my sensibilities (and ostensibly, so that he gets to know the set-up of the series); I gave him the eighth one because he was excited about it. How awesome–that he was excited about reading. Maybe that can be enough sometimes?  There are those of us (ahem, me) who like to read a series in order and not be told any spoilers, but I have friends who don’t care about spoilers or don’t mind picking up a random book in a series. I think we need to give kids more room to choose a book by its cover so that they are excited about the prospect of reading, not the prospect of satisfying someone’s guidelines. Once they are readers, then we should start help to expand their boundaries!