Tales from the Seabury Library

What do Seabury kids like to read?

I just ran a report of circulation statistics and it was fun to study.

Some of the most-checked-out books come as no surprise, such as "Captain Underpants and the Invasion of the Incredibly Naughty Cafeteria Ladies from Outer Space," by Dav Pilkey. The pages fall out of the cheaply made Captain Underpants books like autumn leaves. I just replace them with free books I get from the Scholastic Book Fairs.

In fiction, "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone," by J.K. Rowling is another that has been checked out a lot, plus "Day of the Dragon King," by Mary Pope Osborne, and many others in her Magic Tree House Series. "

"Junie B. Jones has a Monster Under Her Bed" and other Junie B. books by Barbara Park, the Animal Ark books, by Ben Baglio, "Mattimeo" and the rest of the Redwall series by Brian Jacques, the Heirs of the Force (Star Wars) series are other novels our students check out frequently. "The Book of Dragons," short stories by various authors, illustrated by Michael Hague, doesn't stay on the shelf long either.

The most-circulated novel in the Seabury collection? "Let's Party," by Megan Stine, a Mary Kate and Ashley book. You've got me on that one. I do nothing to promote it. Didn't buy it. But they find it. (Don't worry, this was from when MK&A were preteen party-goers, not partiers in their present incarnation.)

Down in the picture book room, "Hop on Pop" and "One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish," by Dr. Seuss, hop on off the shelves. Those are two of the very first books many children can read themselves and even after their reading has progressed, they still like to check them out.

Two other picture books circulate a lot: "If You Give a Pig a Pancake," by Laura Numeroff, and "Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse," by Kevin Henkes.

It's in the non-fiction section that the circulation stats start heating up. In the non-Seabury world, the general belief is that boys are the big non-fiction readers and that girls gravitate toward fiction. In my observance, that doesn't seem to hold true at Seabury. Our boys love fiction and our girls love non-fiction (and vice versa).

It starts with the Ladybugs and Superstars. Even though they don't search the shelves on their own, I have unhappy customers if I don't put a selection of "true books" on the round yellow table along with the storybooks for them to choose from. One small brother and sister in the Ladybugs each check out a "true book" every week.

We have a contingent of girls each year that keep our dog books among the most popular in the non-fiction section. (Boys, interestingly, seem to like the cat books better.) Boys like UFO, Look-Alikes, I Spy and Tin Tin books. (I know they sound like fiction, but they're shelved in the non-fiction section. So are fairy tales and poetry.)

Girls and boys at Seabury seem to be almost equally passionate about space, dinosaurs, mammals, rocks and minerals, birds, drawing, crafts, jokes and riddles and the poetry of Shel Silverstein.

(Just to clarify, the circulation report tells me how often books get checked out. My memory tells me who checks them out – an advantage of working at a small school!)

There's a set of Audubon Field Guides for children. We have Space, Rocks and Minerals, Birds, Wildflowers and a few others. These are so popular with our children that we don't shelve them in normal subject order. They're between a couple of bookends on top of a shelf. I'm sure many of you have seen them come home.

Sometimes a class will latch onto a particular book for awhile. The Navigators have been checking out "Star Wars: Incredible Cross Sections." I'm not sure how many have it on hold right now. When individuals start asking for it a second time, I'll probably say it's time to let another class have a chance.

The Beacons and Navigators love a set of paperbacks called "The Mighty Book of Riddles/Knock-Knock Jokes" ... etc. The Beacons right now are trading around "The Mighty Book of Optical Illusions." Here's a pair of them in my read-aloud chair trying to puzzle out one of the illusions.




Even with more than 11,000 wonderful books, the library disappoints some of our students. We have no books about Hilary Duff or Green Day. And I need to get at least one Calvin and Hobbes book. I've been asked for those countless times over the years.

Lately one Navigator has been distressed at how few books about sheep we have. "You mean you don't have a single book about drawing sheep?" My daughter suggested I steer him to "The Little Prince."

And another Navigator searches the catalog in vain each week for cookbooks. (He's not the only one who's asked for those over the years.) That gap is about to be filled. Since my youngest just turned 16, I just went through my shelves at home and brought in some really cool children's cookbooks to add to our library. Now he asks every week: "Are those cookbooks ready yet?"

Ahh. If I only worked more than two days a week!

** I wrote about some new Halloweenish books in last week's column for The News Tribune. "The Brave Little Witch" is especially sweet.

Talk to you soon.