Reading Places: Literacy, Democracy, and the Public Library in Cold War America

Chapter 6: What to Read: Children’s Choices

177 6 What to Read: Children’s Choices E Teachers and 92% of all rural students have used the [Regional Library] services to enrich school programs and for personal use. Standard achievement tests showed rural children gained two and one-half years in grade level during the two years, from March 1950 to March 1952, or one-half year more than normal progress. It was felt that this gain was largely due to the wider range of books and materials available. Luxemburg News, October 30, 1951 TheRegionalLibrarywasrefreshingthestagnantpoolofprintresources on the Door Peninsula in an unprecedented fashion. Suddenly, residents were awash in reading possibilities, as never before. Moving so rapidly from a situation of print scarcity to print abundance raised questions of choice that teachers and children had rarely confronted before. Among the aims of the Demonstration was to bring “good” reading—reading that not only extended their mechanical abilities but also introduced principles of literary taste and the organization of information—to the children of the two counties. To what extent were children free to select books that appealed to them, and what in fact did they choose? Circulation records not only reveal borrowing patterns , but also provide the only indication that survives of the range of books that the library provided for children.1 People like to read about themselves had remarked reading experts Douglas Waples and Ralph Tyler in their large-scale study of adult reading preferences.2 To what extent did Door and Kewaunee children read about themselves? 1 It is impossible to tell how adequate a representation the books checked out by this unscientific sample of readers is of the collection as a whole. 2 Douglas Waples and Ralph Tyler, What People Want to Read About: A Study of Group Interests and a Survey of Problems in Adult Reading (Chicago: American Library Association and University of Chicago Press, 1931), xxiii. Emphasis original. 178฀ What to Read: Children’s Choices Approved Reading The library’s organization of space and personnel was designed to point children in certain directions. Eileen R. remembered that there was always a librarian on the bookmobile. “The librarian would be there,” she said, “and they’d help us pick out books—especially the younger kids—to see if they could read them or if it was in their abilities to read, and then also helped the younger kids fill out their cards to check them out.” In addition to the librarian as reader’s adviser, the bookmobile and libraries were physically organized to steer children toward materials considered appropriate for their age. Books were organized by grade level, and the librarian encouraged the children to check out their own grade-level section, or perhaps a level or two above. There was always a catalog on the bookmobile. “In fact, that is where I learned to use the card catalog system—on the bookmobile,” said Eileen. “I needed to fill out the numbers and the cards and everything and know exactly where they were. But we also had the freedom to just go and browse also and look for books. And if we were looking for a specific subject or a specific author, that’s where I learned how to use the card catalog. It was an educational tool, yes.” Librarians were eager to intervene in what they saw as the circumscribed lives of the children—especially those living on farms—on the Door Peninsula. They believed that acquiring the habit of reading could lead children to a better-informed and richer existence, but recognized that this belief was not necessarily shared by the children’s own families. Most children came from families where education, by and large, was limited to the rural school. Few adults—barely onequarter in Door County and only 18 percent in Kewaunee County— had more than an eighth-grade education.3 Ethnicity and religion could also combine to dissuade children (especially boys) from embracing a wide variety of print materials. In both counties, children saw “nationality ” and religious affiliation as the basis of social identity and believed that together they accounted for differences in rural social customs. “When you’re out in the country, you’d better make sure that whoever 3 “Characteristics of the Population, Part 49: Wisconsin,” in Census of Population: 1950, vol. 2 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1952), 49–122. What to Read: Children's Choices฀ 179 you were going to make friends with was...