Be More Bookish - Week 2, Assignment 1

I was speaking to Stephen, a coworker at Catonsville, about this reading assignment and I remarked that, to me, the sections detailing the elements of appeal seemed to be maybe possibly just a little bit over-complicating a largely intuitive process. He told me that he'd been thinking about it in terms of music composition, which is to say in terms of all of the different elements coming together to make a cohesive whole. I really appreciated this perspective, as it helped me think about this reading in a different context. There have been artists that I have loved but that have one or two songs that I absolutely can't stand. In the same way, not every book written in the historical fiction genre is going to appeal equally to every person who loves historical fiction. It's important to understand the different elements of appeal, because not every book in the same vein is going to focus on the same things. Not every author has the same strengths, or displays them equally in every single book that he or she writes.

This new perspective made it a lot easier for me to appreciate and absorb the different types of reader's advisory described by the next part of the article. Over all, I would have to say that the first type is the method with which I've had the most success. In my experience, readers are much more interested in talking about their tastes than answering specific questions, and I've found that more often than not listening to someone describe what they enjoy and why allows me to come up with at least a few suggestions. For example, parents will often approach the desk and ask for suggestions for their kids, saying things like "oh, he's really into books with dragons" or "last year she was really into fairies but now I think we've outgrown them." What the second statement tells me is that the girl has an interest in fantasy settings, but that fairies have either started to bore her or she's outgrown them. In that scenario, I would probably recommend something that has an older target audience but still incorporates, if not fairies, something that has a similar feel and flavor. Perhaps some of Edward Eager or E. Nesbit's books, though they might be a little too old and outdated at this point, and definitely Cornelia Funke's Inkheart Trilogy. The doorway method also appeals to me as it doesn't rely solely on our very limiting and sometimes inaccurate genre classifications. All in all, this article proved to be a lot more fruitful than I thought it was at first glance. I'm excited to try out some of these new techniques!