High on Reader’s Advisory
Posted by Chris on April 30th, 2008 filed in books, young adultsActual conversation at the Help Desk with a customer (girl between the ages of 13 and 16) from yesterday:
Me: Can I help you?
Customer: Yeah, you know the books Glass and Crank?
Me: Yeah, did you want to know if we have those in?
Customer: No, I already checked and they’re not, but I was wondering if you had any books like them.
Me: OK, sure. Now when you say “like them,” you mean…?
Customer: Books about, like, drug abuse.
Now I should have recommended Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas right on the spot, but I somehow didn’t think of that until later. Anyway, I looked through the catalog under the subject headings “Drug Abuse - Fiction” and “Drug Addicts - Fiction.” Looking through the plot summaries, I actually ended up asking a a set of questions I never thought I’d ask:
Me: Now, you’re not interested in, say, steroids, right?
Customer: Right.
Me: You’re looking for, like, street drugs, right?
Customer: Exactly.
Go ahead and reread that second part, but take it out of the library / reader’s advisory context. Hopefully you get a laugh like I did.
I ended up sending her home with K. L. Going’s Saint Iggy and Doug Wilhelm’s Falling. Hopefully she’s a satisfied customer.
April 30th, 2008 at 3:02 pm
That’s hilarious.
Corrupting youth! Shut down the libraries!
April 30th, 2008 at 4:58 pm
Same thing happens almost daily at our middle school library. So much non-fiction has really uninspired titles, and the throwaway biographies of current celebrities make for interesting circulation conversation. i.e….
Student tries to check out but an overdue alert pops up.
Me: Where’s Beyonce
Student: In my gym locker.
Or…
Same scenario.
Me: Where’s Marijuana?
Student: Oops - I think I lost it!
May 1st, 2008 at 4:13 pm
I’m at a community college with a big nursing program - I’m always helping people look up various STDs and illicit substances. Psychedelic mushrooms was the hardest.
May 2nd, 2008 at 6:29 pm
My first thought was Go Ask Alice, which was quietly passed among my friends when I was that age. Of course, we didn’t realize at the time that it was anti-drug propaganda and were duped into thinking it was real. Still, isn’t it on ALA’s list of most frequently banned books? Now I find that very funny.
May 6th, 2008 at 7:59 pm
[...] IM conversation with my friend Lauren about the Glass / Crank girl: Me: I do love working with those kids. Lauren: Yeah, they’re so much cooler. Me: And they [...]
May 7th, 2008 at 4:11 pm
I love these kinds of transactions too. Sounds like you sent her on her way with some good reads. She might have like some of Francesca Lia Block’s work, although Fear and Loathing would have surely hit the spot (Thompson does help promote healthy eating habits by eating large quantities of grapefruit, right?).