From: Cindy Dobrez <dobrez>
Date: Fri, 21 Nov 2008 06:32:42 -0500

I would agree with Gail and others that the audience for Octavian Nothing is smaller than most other YA fare, but I am happy to buy an occasional brilliant book destined to be an American classic to supplement the popular titles that may be superseded in just a few years and be withdrawn. Here are two examples of why Lynn Rutan and I have been presenting Octavian in our best of year booktalk presentations at conferences and begging the audience to buy it for every high school and any middle school that serves more than just at-risk struggling readers:

When Pox Party was published, Lynn included it in a mix of 8th grade historical fiction booktalks when the students had to read a book in that genre for our state content standards. She tells this better than I do, but when she booktalked it she referenced its difficult style and challenging subject matter. An 8th grade boy who had NEVER asked for readers advisory and usually checked out books at the public library from the adult section came back a few weeks later and said to Lynn: "Finally, an author who realizes that teens have a brain." I'll buy a book for this kid any day.

The same year, I was walking our local boardwalk on Lake Michigan with some family friends. Their sixth grade son (end of the year) and I had talked about the recent Harry Potter we had just finished for half an hour as we walked and finally I asked him what else he had been reading. "OH," he said,
"I read this really great book called Octavian Nothing." My chin was scraped from hitting the concrete walkway and then I recovered to ask him about the book and why he liked it. He loved the language! He loved the humor. He loved the alternate look at our country's founding history. He got it. Did he get everything? No. Will he read it again in high school? You bet.

When I got to ALA last summer and was privileged to have dinner with Anderson and Candlewick we were given a paperback of the first book and a galley of the new one. I'd already read it by then, so I asked Tobin to autograph it for my young friend who had now finished 7th grade. I wish I could adequately tell you how much it seemed to mean to Tobin that there were young readers who were embracing the books and to Sam, who was DE-LIGHTED to get the autographed end to the series.

A tenth grade son of a friend is mad at me because he just learned that I've had Kingdom on the Waves since last spring and had forgotten to pass it on to him. I guess his high school library doesn't have it yet--or he hasn't checked! Another family in our card club has a senior boy and freshman daughter both of which have read both volumes and are fans--so is their mother. Are these kids elite? Hardly. They have a chicken coop in the back yard, although their parents are chemistry professors at the local college. Their son painted a mural of John Lennon's face on his bedroom wall and his dad took him to Washington to march in some of the anti-war rallies a few years ago. If anything, they are kids born to aging hippies who encourage their kids to think and to respect the rights of everyone and to read widely and argue passionately.

My point, I guess, is that these kids are out there even if we don't see them on a daily basis in our libraries. They are probably looking elsewhere for their reading because we are underestimating their ability to think. We probably have to examine how we sell the book and how our personal opinion influences our patron's response no matter how much we try to keep that out. Circ rates are good indicators for some titles, for others I think they are unjust, as they reflect as much about the promotion a book receives as they do about the appropriateness of the book for the collection.

I try to select for everyone. I have edgy fiction and I counter it in my conservative community with Christian fiction from small presses that is popular with other students. If I add up what I've spent on manga I can certainly justify a single copy of the amazing duet that is Octavian Nothing. The manga will get more circs but I'm going to have Anderson for the kids who want him.

I'm booktalking all day for 7th grade classes and the genre options are wide open to me. I'll try to keep my own proselytizing in mind as I do so and I'll give Octavian and other challenging books a shot today. I'll let you know how it goes.

I'd like to see a gold Printz sticker on the book come January.

Cindy Dobrez, Librarian Harbor Lights Middle School Macatawa Bay Middle School 1024 136th Ave. Holland, MI 49424 dobrez at chartermi.net

"I realize that books are not the entire world, even if they sometimes seem to contain it. But I need the stupid things." --Luc Sante
Received on Fri 21 Nov 2008 05:32:42 AM CST