In October 2007 a report published by Booktrust found that 92%
of UK secondary schools and 61% of primary schools were spending far below the
recommended figures per head on books for their libraries.
Meanwhile, a third of
respondents reported that the person who ran the primary school library did not
have specialist knowledge of children's literature. In secondary schools, 22%
of respondents had no special knowledge of children's literature.
When I was nine I was banned from the library.
It was my school library, run primly and properly by a Head Librarian - with a
little bit of help from a slim cohort of my fellow boarding school peers. They,
however, were also School Prefects, and therefore just as much held in awe by
me as the Head Librarian herself. It was the fault of Franklin W. Dixon that I
was banned from this library. For upon closer inspection, it had been
discovered by said Head Librarian that I had a distinct predilection for The
Hardy Boys. Distinct, as in, by age nine I had already amassed a personal
library of forty of these titles and was well-prepared to stick with brothers
Frank and Joe through thick and thin to the end of my days. Not in and of
itself such a terrible thing for a nine year old girl - one might think - but au
contraire according to my Head Librarian. For in her steely eyes (or I should,
technically, say 'eye' as one was definitely glass!) they were deemed unworthy
of my budding pre-pubescent mind. Consequently, one fine summer day, as I
dawdled at her desk with the latest Dixon title under my arm, I was alarmed to
be told in no uncertain terms that I was to be banned from the library on
sight. Unless, "UNLESS" she re-iterated - looking straight at me with
a small but solid smile - I agreed to take out from the library any other book.
As any parent, and
child-acquainted adult knows, challenging a child can be a dangerous thing if
you are not fully prepared for the consequences. Luckily, my Head Librarian was
a Librarian Extraordinaire and what it meant was this: we resolved our
differences by rising to the challenges we set each other. In immediate
retaliation (at being told what to do, rather than any sense of loyalty to old
F.W.D. it has to be said) I resolved to borrow from this library simply the
biggest book I could find. The Complete Penguin Book of Detective
Short Fiction, at one thousand and seventeen pages, was not only the largest thing
I could find, but the longest thing I'd ever attempted to read so far in my
nine year life. So I stormed back to her desk, slammed it down and gave her my
own small, solid, smile back. What, of course, I wasn't prepared for was the
reaction she then gave. This steely Librarian, all polished and perfect and
perfectly stern suddenly lifted both hands off her desk, and after slightly
skimming the cover of my book - as if, almost, in admiration - she then gave me
a thumbs up, not with just one hand, but with two.
Although I did not, it has to be said, actually
enjoy reading this book, what it marked was a true turning point in my reading
habits - which had, up until that wonderful intervention, somewhat stalled in
Dixon-Blyton-but-not-much-beyond land. A conversion to a whole new wonderful
literature world soon found me welcoming the advances of Rosemary Sutcliffe,
Robert Cormier, Robert Westall, Michelle Magorian, Alan Garner, Jan Marks, Susan
Cooper and Ursula Le Guin (to name just a few of the amazing authors who filled
me brimful with imagination at that age and beyond). I, of course, never looked
back, but looking back now I recognise the importance of that Head Librarian
intervention, and I am thankful that she was so knowledgeable, as well as so
kind and so, so wise.
Posted by: Sara Wingate Gray