Welcome back to our feature “Letters to the FYAditor”, where we show you, gentle readers, the contents of our email inbox. Today we have some fabulous examples of YAngelism taking place in library displays. First, reader Carrie shows us an awesome display she set up of YA Gateway books.
Hey Ladies,
Just wanted to let you know I took the good fight to the streets. In Oct I made a display that featured YA books for adults at the Lower Macungie Library. First my display was compact, but then someone spread it out as I’m sure you’ll notice in the pictures.
Books that went out-
Jellicoe Road
Please Ignore Vera Dietz
Looking for Alaska
Tender Morsels
Copper Sun
Beauty Queens
Codetalkers
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
The Truth About Forever
Jane
Beauty Queens
The Pride of Baghdad
Sold
The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing
Books that did not go out despite my best efforts
The Knife of Never Letting Go!!!!!!! (I blame the cover)
The Monstrumologist
Ship Breaker
The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks
The House of the Scorpion
I didn’t read all of the books I displayed, or even all the books that were checked out so I couldn’t be personally offended for some of them like Finnikin of the Rock or Going Bovine, but I was personally offended by the five I listed that were not checked out.
Keep up the good work! Your website helps to get me through the work day.
Carrie
And reader qooze sent us the following email and photo:
Not sure where it’s from, saw this on a friends Facebook wall. I think you can tell why’d think of FYA.
[Edit: photo from Orca Books via Sarah Enni]
Thanks Carrie and qooze! So, what say you friends? Have you see any good examples of YAngelism at your local library? Are you deeply offended when books you love aren’t checked out? Is your library encouraging to adults who want YA? Or is your library like mine, which has a sign barring the teen section from anyone outside the ages of 12-19. I can still pass for 19, right?
Related posts:
{ 33 comments… read them below or add one }
The YA section in my library is fair game, but they did post anti-adult propaganda (13-19! why?) in their special ‘teen corner’ where all the new releases are. Sad days.
Carrie, you are fantastic. Please come work at my local library.
I work at my library and while there is a teen room with a sign that says it’s only for 12 to 18 year-olds (where’s the love for the 19 year-olds?), that room only has the teen computers (the library doesn’t want adults using them) and the teen series and comic books. I hardly read series anyway, so I don’t mind that I’m not “supposed” to go in that room. It’s not really enforced, just the computer use. I sent my boyfriend in there last week when he asked me about comic books. No biggie. Thankfully, all the non-series teen books are against the back wall of the normal fiction shelf area so it’s not hard to go from one to the other. I helped a lady last week find a book to read in the teen section. The only thing she could tell me was that she really liked Twilight – and she told me about five times – so I looked for Nightshade first (checked out), Hush Hush (checked out) and finally scored with Nevermore. She took it and checked it out so I hope she liked it! There’s a tiny display of new teen books, but I wish I could do something for awesome teen books. Unfortunately the current teen librarian (a not-too-friendly guy in his 60s) knows I’m super interested in the teen books and has become quite protective of them. Oh well, I’ll just keep pushing them on to people while I’m shelving the regular fiction! Sorry for the super-long comment and as always, I love you guys!
Katie! Why don’t they let you pimp out the teen books!? You obvy know your shit.
I think the teen librarian is worried I’m going to somehow take his job, which I would LOVE, but still. Can’t I help out? He looked at me so strangely when I asked what the library was doing for Teen Reads Week. Of course the answer was “nothing” which upset me. I want to do something but have no power to do anything… I’m just a lowly part-time clerk so naturally I know nothing about books.
Keep trying, Katie! You can rise from pt clerk to ft librarian, I know! I’ve done it. And who knows, oldybags teen librarian might retire one day.
Thanks Stephanie!!!!!!!!! This site and the devoted fans served as the inspiration.
As a teen librarian and regular librarian, I think barring patrons from a certain area goes against ALA standards. When I worked in the teen section at Reading Public Library, we always had adults wandering in to check out comic books, manga, and vampire books. Not to mention the teachers coming in to get required reading for college courses. It’s the same as barring teens from the adult section. At RPL we asked adult patrons not to hang out in the teen section or use the computers because some of them were creepy (plus they had tables and computers in the main section of the library), and we did want the teens to feel like it was “their space”, but we never barred adults.
Reading as in Reading, PA??? I hope so. RPL Main Branch was my favorite place in the world as a kid. It was the biggest library I had ever seen, and I could take ANY BOOK HOME! My mom had to make me a tote bag to carry them all out.
Yes! We now have the honor of being the poorest city in the U.S.A!!!!!!!! (w. a population of over 65,000). Still, a great collection at that library!
hold up, I was just reading about Reading Public Library! Didn’t Taylor Swift donate a lot of books to it recently?
(Also, why can’t my brain remember anything USEFUL?)
My library has a sign banning adults by the YA books as well! Glad to hear I’m not the only one, but I really do have a problem with it. I’m a rule-follower by nature, but I draw the line with this one by sneaking in and trying to look as young as possible! The worst part is that there are rarely any actual teens in that section.
Whoa, that is crazytown. I suppose it’s for the teens’ safety? But completely unfair. I’m a nanny, so I am in my very small library at least once a week for their “circle time” business for the behbehs and I have NO IDEA where they’re hiding the YA Section. Srsly. The library is super teeny, with one half of it being the Children’s section and the other half has a few computers and shelves but I haven’t seen anything resembling an actual section for YA. Booooo. Not that I have a library card (GASP!) I know, I know. I have a book addiction. I need to actually own and keep forever and always, every single book. I even have a Nook and I buy books from there and then when I’m finished, I will buy them again used or ask for them as gifts for my birthday. It’s a problem. I’m not dealing with it.
Btdubs, I totally just went on Tumblr and searched Forever Young Adult and followed every one of you that said you loved the site. Because I also have an internet problem.
My co-worker and I are going to put up a display now because of this! We work in a college library so any suggestions for books to put in the display would be great. We want to get faculty and the students not in our YA Book Club to start reading YA.
Those listed by Carrie are all good ones. Also, everything in our Required Reading category is super good/has major cross-over appeal for adults.
I am said co-worker of Diana! I cannot wait for this display! I suggest YA books to everyone who asks me for suggestions. Including lending out my own copies of things when I create a rush on a particular title (An Abundance of Katherines and Frankie *cough cough*)
I ALWAYS have teens giving me weird looks in the YA section of the bookstore I frequent. Hey, come on, chicks! Don’t look at me as an intruder! You’re the reason I always mutter “it’s for my niece,” at the checkout! (My niece is still breastfeeding, FYI.)
I think that it is awesome. Way to reach out.
I wish my library was big enough to have a separate teen room! Instead, we have a teen “corner,” and anyone can get those books. In fact, we have a little group of grown up guys (!) who are always looking for new books from the teen section.
That’s my kind of fella!
I’m qooze, it’s a combo of a couple old nick names. I wonder if the idea of banning adults from the young adult section is to make sure the teens books aren’t all checked out by non teens and the actual teens can’t get the ones they want.
Um, yeah, I’m guilty of snagging the latest YA releases and also grabbing dozens of picture books. (I’m fortunate to live in an area with healthy public libraries.) I prioritize reading new releases so they’re back in circulation ASAP, especially if they have long request queues.
My local Barnes & Noble (I’m looking at you Bethesda, MD) has one bookcase of YA books. ONE CASE. Apparently everything else can be relegated to adult fiction or children’s (another section I frequent proudly). I’ve given up on them completely after trying to get a copy of The Book Thief and finding nothing but shelves upon shelves of bad Twilight knockoffs. My library on the other hand (Georgetown, DCPL) doesn’t seem to have any rules about adults in the YA section, AND they’ve had YA displays by the main door before. They’re also really good about securing your book club selections for me
AHHHH the Bethesda, MD Barnes and Nobel is the INFAMOUS B&N from that awful WSJ article about DAAAAARK YA books. IS IT SUPER SCARY?? Just the super scariest, darkest YA section you’ve ever seen!?!?
Georgetown! I haven’t been there since the remodel but it doesn’t surprise me that they’re nice. In all fairness, no one has ever called me out on going into the teen section, but that sign still irks me.
Good lord!!! I did NOT see this article when it came out. I wish I had, so I could sympathize…oh wait…I mean berate the author. Though for serious, the supply at that particular B&N is pretty appalling. Tons and tons of smoldering-look-covers and stuff. I mean come on. Obviously I need to write a strongly worded letter to their YA buyer.
The bottom one is from Olympia, WA– Sarah Enni found it.
http://www.sarahenni.com/2011/11/04/ya-is-a-ok/
Awesome! Thanks for the info. The internet finds everything out! What a cool book store.
Awesome display!
I’m so jealous of libraries that still have passionate people on their payroll and, ya know, books! I live in a reeeeaaaally small town and though we have a gorgeous building for the library, the stacks are woefully empty. And the YA section is, like, a *shelf* with mostly books from the mid-90s, and a lot of Sweet Valley High.
Guess I’ll just have to live vicariously through all you good folks out there in cyber-library land!
Smiles!
Lori
My library has an alcove where they keep all the hardcover YA books. it’s not barred to the A’s but it does have a large NEON sign announcing that it’s the YA section so I always feel like a creeper when I go in there.
The paperbacks are on another shelf, on the other side of the library, behind the reference books. I tend to frequent that section
I might have to whisper in the ears of our librarians on this one…those displays are a great idea. Our new YA display, however, is optimally place for maximum viewage from the main area of the library. We don’t have any sort of “no adults” sign in our teen area, but we do have a brightly lit one that says “Teen Zone.” Adults use the computers there all the time. Also, it has better air conditioning than anywhere else in the library, so I can use that as my excuse for lingering there…but only in the summer.
Hey thanks guys for adding the credit!! I LOVE Orca’s books, and basically I want to make a copy of that sign and put it in every bookstore. And my own shelf.
I can’t believe no one chose The Disreputable History of Frankie ‘andau-Banks or The Knife of Never Letting Go (which I think has a fantastic cover!). A great display nonetheless!
That sign is amazing!
I always feel like a creeper when I go to the YA section of my library, pick a seat and settle down with about seven Sweet Valley: Senior Year books (my library has them all and I can’t justify actually spending money on them or bringing them home).
We have a Teen Room, while adults are free to browse the collection we don’t encourage them to get comfy and sit down at our tables or couches. If they did, there would be no place for our teens to sit once they got out of school!
Shipbreaker NEVER goes out, like ever. Knife does better when it’s next to the rest of the books in its series. If you put a horror spine label on Monstrumologist it may go, teens don’t realize it’s awesome gorey.