Because she's read all of the books?

During a farewell celebration from a previous job, an elementary student was asked why he thought I was leaving that school library.  His response: "Because she's read all of the books?"

Well, I had read a lot of them, but certainly not all!  My colleague's great post about recommending books got me thinking about one of the things we do that we often take for granted.  Read.  We can't recommend great books until we've read them, and reading takes time.  Sure, we also read a lot of book reviews which can help, but reading a review of a book is not the same as reading the actual book. I have, on more than one occasion, read a book because of its excellent review but upon reading it myself, found it to be much-less-than-excellent or not appropriate for the grade levels the review suggested.  It's always sad when that happens, but reminds me that there is no substitute for reading it myself.

I have also read many great children's books that were not my personal favorites.  Genres that were not my personal favorites.  That is our job too.  Not only reading what we love, but making sure we read what our students and teachers might love, even if it isn't our cup of tea.  We have to be self-aware enough to put our own likes and dislikes aside and evaluate a book for its overall quality and merit.  It might just be exactly the perfect book for one of our students!

Reading that widely takes time.  Teacher days are so packed that they can rarely fit in time to keep current on all of the new books coming out. It's our job to read as much as we can on their behalf, and on the behalf of our students, so that we can connect them with the books that meet their curriculum needs or that we know they will love.