to think a school librarian should have heard of Wolf Hall and actually read books?

I imagine she's more of an administrator, or a teacher who looks after the library. Schools can't afford librarians. And even if she were, librarians can't read all books. Even Booker ones!

Who here on MN cared about the Booker prize under age 18, and read them?

It’s a literature award, selected by booky people. It’s not the best sellers, not everyone’s fav book. Librarian doing a job which doesn’t include talking to you about Booker prize from 15 yrs ago.

has never heard of Wolf Hall and cannot recommend any reading books to pupils as a result

This is pretty tenuous...

No I didn't. I offered a suggestion that they could join the SLA. It's not worth much more attention than that given it's a secondhand comment from a friend of the OP so we have no way of knowing whether this is true or not.

Maybe suggest the librarian starts by reading Orbital? It won the Booker and it's WAY shorter.

Capable but likely not interested.

when it was quite normal to move from reading A Little Princess and Narnia to 19thc novels such as those of the Bronte sisters and Dickens maybe with a slight detour via LoTR, The Catcher in the Rye and Brat Farrar.

I think you may have known quite a specific subset of people who enjoy 19c novels.

Most of the adults I knew growing up read science fiction, crime fiction, Mills & Boon or Jilly Cooper. Not that they couldn’t have read the Brontë sisters, but they found other types of fiction a more enjoyable read. And that’s fine!

My friend is a qualified librarian and had a job as a school librarian. The school then wanted her to work as a TA for some bits of the week and then do other school work outside of the library. It became so she was mainly in the classroom rather than the library. She quit and they replaced her with a TA, who is paid less than she was, is less qualified (and isn't actually a librarian at all) but is still called the librarian.

I don't know many schools with an actual qualified librarian any more.

You've conveniently skipped over the fact that this librarian doesn't actually read books. At all.

I'd say Wolf Hall is an easier read than Treasure Island for a teenager today! I was a voracious reader of most things that I could get my hands on as a teen and RLS always felt like hard work.

Welcome, @NoShelfContro1 ! Good to hear you're still able to do such a brilliant job in a school library and I wish there were more of you. Totally agree that a love of books that resonate with children is vital. I get that shaming people for not knowing about every book is not good, and snobbish behaviour about reading is often counterproductive, but do you keep any sort of watching brief on emerging books outside the YA space? Wolf Hall has sold over a million copies and has been a bit of a phenomenon - I just wonder how possible it is to be engaged with books in general and not have come across it.

I think you’ll find many secondary school librarians are ex teachers who have taken a huge pay cut to escape. Although they may not have professional librarian qualifications, they’ll be educated to degree standard (often with English degrees) and willing and able to deal with the poor behaviour that even a library experiences these days.Sadly the stereotype of quiet, bookish children finding a haven in the Library is out of date when it becomes a warm place to meet with your mates and see if you can annoy the Library ladies!

I would be surprised at a school librarian recommending Wolf Hall other than to specific, older students (probably those doing English and/or History A level). It's brilliant, but the style is not the most accessible for a 'casual' reader

Our school (boys, 11-18) issues suggested reading lists of general interest to each year group and that contains largely modern YA books with a few classics like Treasure Island.

I agree as an academic in Eng Lit that the huge growth of YA has stopped adolescent transitioning to adult reading in the way that used to happen -- certainly there were YA novels around when I was a teenager, but they were just a bridge between child and adult reading, the signal you were leaving the children's library for the adult one, and when it was quite normal to move from reading A Little Princess and Narnia to 19thc novels such as those of the Bronte sisters and Dickens maybe with a slight detour via LoTR, The Catcher in the Rye and Brat Farrar.

I see my students now hitting YA series and just staying. Numerically, there's no reason why they ever need to move on. They could read YA for the rest of their lives.

Well this is the thread that finally made me join Mumsnet after lurking for years and years!

I'm a professionally qualified school Librarian. I have a degree in English Literature, a Masters in Information and Library Management and 25 years experience in a range of Libraries. And I'm a massive lover of teen and YA fiction.

I work in a state secondary and people like me are as rare as hen's teeth. Most state schools cut their library provision years ago, even private schools are making Librarians redundant and using unqualified staff to run the service. I think my role only exists because my school places huge emphasis on reading for learning and joy, and I can only manage to live on the low salary I earn because my life is subsidised by my better-earning partner. All in all a pretty sad state of affairs for our young people.

Thinking about the OP. I absolutely refuse to shame someone for not having heard of a book. I am good at my job because I primarily read teen and YA fiction. I am hugely enthusiastic and able to recommend a book even if I've not read it but I sometimes feel shame that I haven't read the latest Booker/Women's Prize winner. But that isn't what makes me good at my job and most literary fiction doesn't ignite my reading passion. (That said, I adore Wolf Hall and the sequels and think Mantel is incredible)

If what your friend is saying is correct, then I recommend they encourage the school to get an institutional membership of the School Library Association. The Librarian can then receive professional support, training and book-promotional resources for the very reasonable fee of £95 p/a.

I didn’t say they were not capable of it, only that they may not wish to. I read lots of classics at 13/14, but I was an outlier at my school. (And having not read WH, I don’t particularly know the difficulty level of it, just my lack of interest in Booker prize winners generally!)

I doubt I’ll read her stuff because it’s not my thing but I know who she is and I’d recommend her to someone looking for new stuff, especially in her genre. That’s the level of general literature knowledge I’d think someone interested in books would have.

But there is a whole range of more interesting works of fiction. I might expect people to say ‘who’ if I suggested Octavia E Butler. Yet she was a winner of several book awards, one of her books was made into a Disney+ programme and her work is extremely thought provoking.

Presumably the role is more admin and very low paid as pp have said so that would perhaps reflect the level of professional interest.

I’m not a librarian but I am a library assistant ie I work in a public library. I’ve never read wolf hall and quite frankly I don’t want to.

Not sure why you need to have read Wolf Hall to work in a school library?

The fact I’ve never read Hilary Mantel or Wuthering Heights or pretty much anything considered classic literature doesn’t make me bad at my job. I recommend books to people day in day out based on what tell me they like.

The joke at my work is I read the books no one else, by which I mean my colleagues and regular customers, will. I love translated Japanese fiction (no, not just books about cats in cafes), non-fiction about recent history (like Patrick Radden-Keefe) some sci-fi (dystopian futures, not dragons) and anything that catches my eye.

And a Booker prize doesn’t mean a book is good, or accessible or enjoyable. I read Orbital, this years winner, and hated it. Headshot by Rita Bullwinkle was long listed but never made it to the short list and it was one of my favourite books of last year.

And that’s because of a culture of low expectations and setting the bar as low as possible “any book is better than none”.
Children aren’t stretched or challenged at all in their reading. The rise of YA (which has become more and more porn-soaked and is often more suited for adults not children) has done a lot of damage. And it’s not just young adult - publishers now have “new adult”, “emerging adult” and other such dumbed down nonsense.

I worked as a Library assistant (what most people would think of as a librarian) for a couple of years. I'm not a particularly avid reader, but I've a good logical brain, like putting things in order, good at customer service, good at computer systems, and have a good memory- basically, this is what is needed above reading the books because if you can't work the dastardly computer software which is very opaque, you're stuffed. I also noticed and remembered popular books - I could tell you the exact DDN for most categories of non fiction and exactly where they were in the library, I could pick books straight out by the look of their spine from miles off, people would think I'm a massive whizz and know everything about books. But I know how to manage books.

This is important especially re kids books. I definitely won't have read them unless they're 'classics' from my own childhood (I'm not a kid, don't have kids) but I can see what everyone's borrowing and recommend from there. You honestly would never know!

It surprises me that fiction readers have not heard of Wolf Hall.
Have you heard of Hilary Mantell at all?
I could imagine not remembering the name but I would be surprised at readers not being aware of Hilary Mantell and her whole series of books, especially as she died not that long ago.
And it's been adapted to TV and theatre so lots of reasons to have heard of it.

I wouldn't judge someone based on not having heard of one book though. I might judge if they were a professed fiction reader (of a broad range of fiction) or librarian and they hadn't heard of a whole bunch of books.

I didn't realise Conclave was a book until the film came out. Not my genre but I am aware of it now (should there be further adaptations made!)

I’ve an avid reader, but modern literary fiction is not my genre. I’ve just skimmed the list of Booker prize winners and there were only 9 I have heard of (some because they have been adapted to tv or film, like Wolf Hall) and there is only one I have read. I don’t imagine that it’s high up on the list for school kids (even in secondary) to want to read.

We read newspapers ON the internet, FFS.