Reading round-up

Books and reading news from the Library

 A person who won’t read has no advantage over the person who can’t read

Mark Twain

After the joys of holiday reading, one of the delights of returning to school is hearing staff and students talk about what they’ve read and recommending books to each other.

I encouraged all our staff to try a Young Adult book over the summer as a way of connecting with what their tutees and our students of all ages are reading for pleasure. I created a Padlet with some book suggestions and was delighted to hear that one of our Geography teachers, a 6th form tutor, re-read Holes by Louis Sachar, read ‘After the Fire’ by Will Hill and ‘Rivers of London’ (not strictly of the YA genre but popular with teens and adults alike)

On Monday 3rd September, we saw all the new 3rd form and new students in the 4th form and L6th for Library induction. In tutor groups we had an interesting discussion of their attitudes to reading.

Our survey gives a snapshot of some of our students’ attitudes to reading.

  • The 3rd form boys enjoy fiction more than non-fiction (although they also expressed a liking for autobiographies). Two of the boys in The Hill animatedly told us about their love of Manga comics. However, the L6th boys strongly prefer non-fiction.
  • The majority of 3rd form girls prefer fiction – especially dystopian novels such as the ‘Divergent’ series.
  • E-books: Although many have a Kindle e-reader almost all prefer the real thing, with some listening to audio-books. If you have a long drive with the family I thoroughly recommend the audio-book of Trevor Noah’s biography ‘Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood’ It is narrated by the comedian himself and is hilarious, informative and entertaining. We also have the book in the library.
  • The majority of the 3rd form enjoyed reading ‘The Territory’ our summer read and a number of them went on to read book 2 & 3 of the trilogy during the holidays or asked for the other books at the start of term.

A key aim this year is to encourage reading and it has been heartening to see many students in the library borrowing books to support subjects new to them in the 6th form such as Psychology and Politics.

Here are a few teacher recommendations for the start of the new school year. Mr Tapley recommends ‘A day in the Life of the brain: The Neuroscience of Consciousness from Dawn Till Dusk’, by Susan Greenfield. Economics teachers are suggesting their students read ‘Talking to my daughter about the economy: a brief history of capitalism’ by Yanis Varoufakis. Mr Atherton proposes ‘Thinking fast and Slow’ by Daniel Kahneman and Mr Hendrick ‘Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind’ by Yuval Noah Harari. I urge people of all ages to read ‘Factfulness: ten reasons we’re wrong about the world and why things are better than you think’ by Hans Rosling. It challenges all our assumptions about the world, will make you question everything you ever believed and includes fascinating and honest anecdotes about his life as a doctor in rural Africa.