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

[Prevalence]

was chatting to a friend - who said the school librarian where he works doesn't read books, has never heard of Wolf Hall and cannot recommend any reading books to pupils as a result ... AIBU to think this is nonsense???

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.

😱

Get thee to a library!!!

Not many schools even have qualified library assistants nevermind librarians. Outside universities they seem to be a dying breed, public libraries are being staffed by volunteers and those on community service, school libraries are run by admin staff or TAs.

My Mother, who had a career in libraries used to despair.

Our school librarian told me off for reading in the library, because libraries aren't for reading books!

What do you read? I'm interested to know what English teachers are reading if they're not reading modern classics.

I imagine that's because school kids can also access public libraries. And bookshops. And little free libraries. And charity shops. And the internet, with an ereader. Unlike prisoners.

I think they adapted the script first and companion books later

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.

That’s certainly not what I’m saying. I can’t attest to the quality of much of it because I’ve not read particularly widely in it. My point is only that it’s damaging in that it seems to now have the frequent effect of becoming an endpoint for many readers, who get ‘stuck’ there and don’t then read more widely. And it’s not ‘they don’t read classic novel’, more they don’t read outside YA. (And I wish I liked graphic novels. I’ve tried, but I can’t get past feeling shortchanged because there aren’t enough words.)

It’s not snobbery, it’s treating literature as the art form it is. Literature is art, just like painting or opera. Literature as art is what kids study at school.

Books may also offer us entertainment or information or self-help or ‘representation’, but that does not mean they are of value as literature. They might be ‘good’ as self-help (for example) but ‘bad’ as literature. Of course some literature will do all these things.

The focus at school should be on the quality of the book as an art form. That is the whole point of English Literature as a subject. I think you do children a disservice if you think some can’t appreciate great art. I believe anyone can with the right teaching or support. The fact that a book can engage us in something that is completely unfamiliar is part of what makes it so enriching.

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with YA. There are some excellent books out there- I’ve read quite a few. There is also a fair amount of formulaic dross, but that’s true of any genre. The point is that a librarian/ library assistant should be sufficiently familiar with the wider range of books to be able to recommend them to students and encourage them to try different things. It doesn’t have to be Wolf Hall!

You’ve said this much more eloquently than I could, I agree with every single word

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 loved talking with the children about the books we were all reading. It was the best part of that job. I'd recommend to them, and they would do the same in return.
There is some really good fiction in the YA range, and a heck of a lot more choice than when I was that age.

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.

Didn’t she write a book about two footballers wives?
I read about it in The Sun.
I’m a TA so I’m very well read 👍🏻

Doesn’t this thread prove we’re all just reading AIBU threads on Mumsnet? 👍🏻

Ok well I’m not sure what you want me to reply when I’m being asked how I don’t know a book - how does one explain how they’ve never heard of something? And as I’ve said, my degree is English language, and so it’s very different to literature.

Lol at Waterstones though, the nearest bookstore to me must be 50 miles away and we have to order books in to our local library. So yeah, I may have missed the window displays for Wolf Hall.

Also, if it helps you to continue to despair for my teaching, even now that I’ve heard of Wolf Hall, I won’t be reading it.

Oh this one does sound interesting! Thanks!

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.

Wolf Hall isn't particularly highbrow though. It's literary fiction but it's not hard to read. That's why it became so popular.

Highbrow? It’s literature. Like the subject.

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.

I'd expect anyone with even a passing interest in fiction to be aware of books that have won the Booker Prize

Why?

I'd expect anyone with even a passing interest in fiction to be aware of books that have won the Booker Prize

I wouldn't, to be honest. Many of them are quite random books and don't appeal widely. The fact that Wolf Hall won the Booker is only incidental to me.

I worked in a chain bookshop long enough to get that at any one time there are a handful of novels that 'everyone' is reading - the ones that the booksellers get to know well enough that they know what someone wants when they ask for 'the book with the blue cover'. And Wolf Hall was one of those books. That's the reason I'm surprised anyone with a general interest in literature hasn't even heard of it. People were recommending it to friends and buying it at the airport to read on holiday. It broke out of the smallish world of literary fiction and into the mainstream.

At secondary school?? Jeez 😩