Book list

[Shaun Hately]

Some people may see this more than once as I am sending it to a 
number of different places.

A few weeks ago, I posted a request to this list (and others) asking 
for people to suggest children's books (and books for children) that 
I should look at adding to my collection of children's books for 
teaching purposes.

I'm currently halfway through the third year of my four year 
education degree and am looking at the possibility of becoming a 
literature and literacy specialist. I eventually hope to work most 
specifically with gifted children and early specialisation, if I can 
manage it, makes that much easier. To do this, the way I would to do 
it properly, it's a good idea for me to build up my own resources so 
I'm not relying just on what schools have available. To this end, 
I've already gathered around 400 books of my own, and I was looking 
for ideas of books that people found particularly good either in 
their own childhood, or with their own children.

I got a lot of suggestions - and that's why it has taken me a few 
weeks to get to back to this. All up, people suggested somewhere over 
2,000 separate books and I have been slowly adding all of these to a 
database. I completed the basic part of this task today, and I 
thought some people might be interested in seeing everything that was 
suggested.

There are two pages, each of which contains the same books. The first 
has them listed by title, the second has them listed by author 
(there's a third piece of information on each page that is there for 
my use - a reminder to me of what I already have, and what I am still 
looking for - I got so many great suggestions!).

The two pages are at:

http://www.alphalink.com.au/~drednort/bookindex.htm

http://www.alphalink.com.au/~drednort/authorindex.htm

If you suggested a book that is not on the list, it's not because I 
have ignored you - I got so many e-mails that I may have missed some 
on this first run through. I will be adding more books when I have 
had a chance to recover (this turned out to be a larger job than I 
thought).

Quite a few people asked some questions initially about all this, 
which I'll try and answer now - I was just so swamped (and that's a 
good thing) that I couldn't immediately answer everything. My 
apologies.

First, what age group am I interested in? The answer is, just about 
any from below 5 up to around 15 year olds. I'm training to be a 
primary school teacher, but will probably wind up qualified to teach 
to at least 15 year olds, and maybe 16 and 17 year olds as well. 
Personally I would like to teach upper primary (10 or 11 year olds 
roughly) but to begin with, I may well have to take whatever I can 
get and I feel I'd be able to teach any age well. If I do get work as 
a specialist though, then either on a full time or part time basis, I 
could well be working with a wide age range. Also, of course, dealing 
with gifted kids (as I would love to do officially, and will be doing 
unofficially of course, even if I just get a normal teaching job, 
because you can get gifted kids in any class) age ranges are often a 
bit more fluid than most people generally suppose.

Second, what is a literacy and literature specialist - and doesn't 
that normally mean working with kids with learning problems, rather 
than gifted kids? Well, first of all, learning difficulties can 
affect kids of all ability levels - so there are gifted kids out 
there with literacy problems, just as there are in any population. 
But more generally, a L&L specialist often works with kids who are 
advanced in reading. If you have a five year old who can read at the 
level of most nine year olds, it can sometimes be difficult to find 
suitable books for them - they may be technically able to read at a 
higher than normal level, but not be emotionally ready for many of 
the books at that level (of course, some kids, can be advanced across 
the board - but that is, by no means, a given). Part of what an L&L 
specialist is expected to do is know books well enough so they can 
find books that deal with this type of asynchrony. By the same token, 
a child who is having difficulty with the technical aspects of 
reading may still crave books dealing with more complex subjects than 
most of the books at their 'reading level' and they can become bored. 
In some ways, this is a new field and there's not that many jobs in 
it yet - but it is expected to grow.

Thirdly, what type of books am I interested in? Any - any that are 
suitable for children. Now my views on suitability are actually 
pretty broad - I don't believe in censoring books in general (though 
for specific kids, I think it can sometimes be a good idea), however 
as I'll be working with other people's kids, I need to respect the 
range of parents views. So there are some limits, I suppose - but 
very few. I don't mind if books are old fashioned, or politically 
incorrect (I actually regard such books as very useful teaching tools 
in many cases), or classics. I don't mind mass produced series like 
Goosebumps and Animorphs - I don't think they are great literature, 
but if they get a kid reading who otherwise wouldn't, that's great, 
and there's nothing wrong with at least some of a kid's reading being 
pulp. Basically, the reason I asked for suggestions is because I know 
my current collection largely favours my own reading preferences - 
and I wouldn't want to impose my preferences on kids by default.

Anyway - thanks to everyone who has helped and provided ideas. It's 
most appreciated - even though my bank balance is not going to like 
the results (it's not that bad, actually - I've already picked up 
hundreds of books at op shops often for 50 cents a piece).


Yours Without Wax, Dreadnought
Shaun Hately | www.alphalink.com.au/~drednort/thelab.html
(ISTJ)       | drednort at alphalink.com.au | ICQ: 6898200 
"You know the very powerful and the very stupid have one
thing in common. They don't alter their views to fit the 
facts. They alter the facts to fit the views. Which can be 
uncomfortable if you happen to be one of the facts that 
need altering." The Doctor - Doctor Who: The Face of Evil
Where am I: Frankston, Victoria, Australia