Why Are These School Library Shelves Empty?

Empty bookshelves at several school libraries across town can mean only one thing: Nominations for the annual Nutmeg Book Award are out.

Each February, a committee sponsored by the Connecticut Library Association and Connecticut Association of School Librarians announces the nominees for its Nutmeg Book Award, an initiative to promote quality children's literature. 

Students are asked to read the nominated books, which must be available in paperback so librarians can offer multiple copies, and vote for their favorite.

Even though Sandy Hook School has at least 10 copies of each nominated book, on a recent Wednesday, there were only a handful of titles available for checkout.  That's 100 books circulating in the hands of eager 3rd and 4th grade students.

It's been six weeks since the nominations were announced, and they are still in heavy demand. For instance, The Lemonade War, a realistic fiction novel about sibling rivalry by Jacqueline Davies, has been particularly popular.

What causes this rush? Remember, we're not talking about the latest video game or vampire movie. It turns out a lot of the credit goes to the quality of the books and the librarians who work hard to promote the program.

"I'd like to think that I generate some of that excitement by talking up the books and putting a little mystery to it all," Sandy Hook Library Media Specialist Bev Bjorklund says.

After the new titles are announced, she gives the 3rd and 4th graders a talk about each of the nominees and then showcases them in a special kiosk. Bjorklund also makes voting seem like a special privilege that they must earn by attempting to read each of the 10 books -- so they can be informed voters, she tells them.

"Because I offer it to kids who want to make a commitment to reading as many as they can, they rise to the challenge," Bjorklund says in an e-mail, adding the special attention these books receive attracts many different kinds of readers. "When books are presented in a 'special' way - book talks, featured on display - the more reluctant reader will become interested."

Library Media Specialist Ginny Snowden creates a similar level of excitement at Reed Intermediate School. She introduces the titles targeted to 4th through 6th graders to the 5th grade students, and the teen titles, targeted to 7th and 8th grade students, to the 6th grade students. Many students end up reading from both divisions.

When asked why the nominees are so attractive, Snowden smiles and says, "The books are very appealing. They are not a chore to read at all."

Snowden also believes children respond well to incentives and a challenge. She tells them if all the students in a cluster read a Nutmeg-nominee, they get a popcorn and movie party in the fall. This encourages more students to read all the books, or to at least give one of them a try. Requiring 100-percent participation also gets peers working as a team to motivate everyone to read.

The students who earn the right to vote (by reading five or eight nominated books, depending on their grade level,) are invited to attend a spring luncheon with a published author who gives a talk and autographs books. The visiting author from last year, Connecticut resident Shelley Pearsall, has a book on the Teen list this year, All of the Above, which is  based on a true story about inner-city school kids.

My daughter has been reading the Nutmeg books since she was a Sandy Hook 3rd grader. Now a 6th grader at Reed Intermediate, she knows that getting her hands on a copy will be difficult, so she enlists my help.

"Mom, if you go to Booth library, try to get me a Nutmeg book. Sometimes it's easier there," she tells me.

At C.H. Booth library, the books are slightly easier to come by. The children's floor houses the intermediate titles in a special display, and the teen titles are given a special place of honor on the bookshelves in front of the librarian's desk. If students do not vote at their school in December, they can cast a ballot at Booth library.

In December students are scrambling to read enough books to cast a vote by the deadline the following month. In March, they are rushing to read the newly nominated books. Either way, empty bookshelves are not a sign of under-funded or picked-over offerings. In this case, they serve as a visual reminder that students can still get excited about something as traditional and enduring as a good book.

Have any of these books made it home in your child's backback this Spring?

2011 Intermediate Nominees:

• Elephant Run by Roland Smith
• Eleven by Patricia Reilly Giff
• First Light by  Rebecca Stead
• Iron Thunder by Avi
• The Lemonade War by Jacqueline Davies
• Night of the Howling Dogs by Graham Salisbury
• No Talking by Andrew Clements
• One-Handed Catch by M.J. Auchs
• Swindle by Gordon Korman
• The Thing About Georgie by Lisa Graff

2011 Teen Nominees:

• All of the Above by Shelley Pearsall
• Alphabet of Dreams by Susan Fletcher
• Chains by Laurie Halse Anderson
• The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart
• Home of the Brave by Katherine Applegate
• The Last Dragon by Silvana de Mari
• The London Eye Mystery by Siobhan Dowd
• Unwind by Neal Shusterman
• Waiting for Normal by Leslie Connor
• The Wednesday Wars by Gary D. Schmidt