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

How would you feel about someone who liked fish fingers and mash, sausage and chips and ice cream when they were 14 and went through their entire life eating only those things, because that's what they liked, so...? Wouldn't you hope to encourage them to try a whole world of other foods and develop their tastes? There's nothing wrong with the best YA, but ideally you grow out it and develop a taste for something adult, and the books you choose teach you about the adult world and its pitfalls. That's where well-read librarians and English teachers come in.

I'm stunned by the lack of adult taste and paucity of ambition and culture demonstrated in this thread. I live in an area where 100 years ago adult education institutes and libraries existed to encourage miners and steelworkers and factory workers to learn to read and read the classics, study history, write and read poetry, learn to paint and draw and perform Shakespeare.

I've had a man here today fixing my fancy new front door. He's a carpenter/ technician, in his 40s, from Manchester. He came into the living room for a tea and looked at some of my books, told me why he didn't like Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections and agreed with me that the book I'm currently rereading for a book group (The Leopard/ Lampedusa) is a classic. I gave him a copy of Chimamanda Ngoni Adiche's Americanah because he noticed I had two of them and he hasn't read it. Now that's an interesting guy.

But those numbers don't work - the authors making money aren't those with protagonists or authors from minoritised communities and they aren't marketed either.

Look at the WH Smith displays - they rarely feature minoritised communities or authors.

It's better than the past when minoritised communities were erased from literature.

One author told me that it was actually the publisher who suggested they change a character to be more representative of the community.

And I did read that in the US you can opt out of receiving Scholastic's diverse book collection...I hope that's not correct as it's sad that a school would not want to have books featuring minoritised communities.

Completely agree, it's very evident in what is being continually pushed by companies like e.g. Scholastic. Nothing wrong with authors who fit those demographics obviously, but the quality is patchy and it feels like clumsy social engineering. And quite tedious. We always had 'trashy'/light books like Sweet Valley High and Point Horror, etc. but at least they were honest about what they were: frothy entertainment.

I work in a very diverse secondary school and for a while it felt like every other new book wanted to be the next 'The Hate U Give', but interestingly I found most other books of that type were more or less ignored! Heartstopper (which I actually enjoyed but the 'represent every possible letter in LGBTQ+++' stuff was a tad heavy-handed) and similar books had a huge surge in popularity, but it feels like that's waning and it's now more about neurodivergence. I do find it annoying because it's so inorganic - just publish good writing, good stories and stop patronising teens with this formulaic stuff!

I work in publishing. A lot of YA publishing is publishing by numbers - is it written by a queer, disabled, black, non-binary schizophrenic, or feature the same? (I exaggerate, though only slightly, for effect.) Brilliant, let’s publish it regardless of quality. Are you a white, straight man who can write well? No, not interested.

That’s what the gatekeepers of YA are doing, the agents and publishers. End result is some good work and a lot of formulaic, substandard rubbish.

This is not serving teenagers well. And refusing to stock excellent adult literature isn’t serving them well either. Ignorance never serves children, a culture of low expectations doesn’t serve them.

Yes, we all enjoying reading fluff. But you can have well-written fluff, and you can read more than just fluff.

Im really taken back that anyone in the U.K. who has been into a bookshop regularly over the last 10 years wouldn’t know Wolf Hall. It was a Sunday Times best seller and would almost certainly be out on the tables in shops like Waterstones almost permanently. I didn’t get on with it personally but then I’ve not read Life of Pi, White Teeth, The English Patient etc either but I still recognise them all ( and I actually own copies of some of them). Wolf Hall is a big hitter.

I've never heard of Wolf Hall and I doubt many of the English teachers at the school I worked at until recently, let alone the librarian, have done so.

If you want school staff to have knowledge of every single piece of literature that's considered to be in any way highbrow, you're going to have to campaign for them to be paid a lot more....

I also think you don't really understand what the role of a school librarian is. Frankly, I'd be more worried if they'd never heard of Diary of a wimpy kid as that's the type of book they need to be able to discuss with pupils.

I don't know - I haven't read the Wimpy Kid books to be able to judge them in particular. I'd still count The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and the Littke House books among my favourites. I've read many, many things since then (not least because we didn't have a TV for most of my school days, and I ended up working in libraries for some years,) but they remain favourites and are reread from time to time.

I've read some great YA books, too, in between reading classics, non-fiction and other adult books in various genres.

I agree library workers (whether qualified or not,) should help readers extend their reading range though. I read Elizabeth Enright's Melendy family books because of the school librarian when I was 9, and the Whiteoaks of Jalna books by Mazo de la Roche because one of the librarians in the town library recommended them to me when I was about 14.

Someone pointed out further up the thread that recent research has shown that a considerable proportion of Year 8/9 students are still saying that Wimpy Kid is their favourite book. Now there’s absolutely nothing wrong with Wimpy Kid- love Jeff Kinney- but isn’t it a bit dispiriting if your favourite book- not just your comfort read, but your favourite book- is the same as it was when you were 9? Isn’t it a good idea to have someone in school, in the library or the classroom, who can suggest something else you might try? I don’t think it’s literary snobbery to believe this is a good idea.

I'm really rankled by the many posts here suggesting all YA and NA is trash and "porn soaked" and that children can only better themselves by reading literary fiction or modern classics. YA can be so empowering for children in their formative years - providing representation, opportunities to explore relevant issues and difficulties and also explore empathy for other teenagers experiencing different coming of age journeys to them. The number of LGBT teenagers whose lives have been changed by Heartstopper are innumerable but I suspect many of the literary snobs here would quite happily put it in the bin as a graphic novel.

Just because you personally do not value it, does not mean it is bad. Literary snobbery puts people off, alienates those who don't enjoy reading classics (which isn't because they are thick, or uncultured, or don't want to be stretched, but sometimes just because they don't enjoy them) and frankly, makes you sound like a dick. Being widely read is supposed to engender empathy, thought for people with different life experiences to your own, and widen your mental scope for different possibilities. I see none of that from people who have jumped on this post to make themselves feel good because they are so "well read" and can't possibly conceive of someone being so without having read the same sort of literature as themselves.

The job of a librarian is to support people to enjoy reading, not to make them feel bad for reading the "wrong" thing.

I've never heard of Wolf Hall and I doubt many of the English teachers at the school I worked at until recently, let alone the librarian, have done so.

If you want school staff to have knowledge of every single piece of literature that's considered to be in any way highbrow, you're going to have to campaign for them to be paid a lot more....

I also think you don't really understand what the role of a school librarian is. Frankly, I'd be more worried if they'd never heard of Diary of a wimpy kid as that's the type of book they need to be able to discuss with pupils.

If Wolf Hall isn’t your thing try another of Hilary Mantel’s , Beyond Black. It’s a very dark story about a professional clairvoyant. And it’s much shorter than WH.

This thread is just more confirmation of how bad, how narrow, modern education is. “I didn’t hear about it at school” therefore I can’t be expected to know about it, despite being an English teacher with an English degree (presumably hasn’t been in a branch of Waterstones for the last 20 years either).