From: bookmarch_at_aol.com
Date: Fri, 08 Oct 2010 11:15:12 -0400 (EDT)

Amy Alessio and I were fortunate enough to get a Frances Henne grant from Y ALSA to study the issue of teenagers and nonfiction -- do they read it, wha t do they read, what do they want? We (to be more precise, she, as Amy has done all of the heavy lifting) have sent out surveys to a variety of kinds of libraries (urban, rural, wealthy, poor) and have also held discussions w ith some teen groups. The results are provisional and spotty but Amy passed along the following early results:

Many teens enjoy the NF they are assigned in school, but have a hard time f inding more they like in the library. Topics they particularly like include boigraphies including gang memoirs, l ocal topics, the paranormal, books about people who make great impact espec ially international ones and of course A Child Called It.

The rather obvious conclusion is that teenagers like to find nonfiction tha t reflects and matches their interests --

Marc Aronson
Received on Fri 08 Oct 2010 11:15:12 AM CDT