Customer Service

Reader’s advisory is the act of recommending books to a patron, and is another staple service of librarians. With youth services, you will get many questions about what books to read both from children and their families, and while you will assuredly build up a repertoire of favorites and classics to readily recommend, there are lots of wonderful resources you can use to help you with reader’s advisory. Here are some things to consider when doing youth services reader’s advisory:

• Interest: Above all, matching the reader with their interests is key.  Have a conversation with the child and/or their caregiver to determine what they are most interested in reading.
• Reading Level: It’s important to match your young patron with a book that they will be able to read and enjoy. Many children’s books have general reading level categories that can be helpful for initial screening, but here are some other ways to help determine if a book level is right for a child:
  • Inquire about what they have recently read and enjoyed and offer books on a similar or slightly higher level of difficulty.
  • Ask for parent or caregiver input on where their child may be at in terms of reading levels
    
  • Utilize the Five-finger Rule: Have the child open the book and read a page aloud. Each time a word is unknown one finger (mentally) goes up. If the child reaches five fingers (five words) within one page, that book might be too challenging.
    
  • Become familiar with any book leveling systems your local schools may use.  Examples include Accelerated Reader, Lexile, and Fountas and Pinnell. Because of the limitations of these systems, most libraries do not organize their own collections based on them, but if you are familiar with how the systems work (their websites and lists), you can more easily locate books for your young patrons.
    
  • Above all--try not to discourage a child from attempting to read a book they are very interested in reading, even if it is too difficult.  You can always suggest they check out a few books that are closer to their level in addition to the difficult book.  This gives them choices once they get home.
    
• Reading Goals: It can be helpful to ask why children are looking for books, as there is a difference between searching for pleasure or fun reading and searching for school homework reading. Understanding your patron’s goals can help you recommend appropriate titles. 
  
• Books They’ve Read Before: Asking children about the books they’ve read and loved is a great way to understand what topics and genres they enjoy. Some children have specific kinds of books that they gravitate towards (ex: non-fiction books about animals, space science fiction, historical accounts, etc) so this can be a very helpful source of information for a librarian.
  
• Advanced Readers: Some children read well beyond their age/grade. Here you need to balance a challenging read with one that has content at the proper maturity level. It’s a good idea to become familiar with options ahead of time and make a list for yourself and other staff.  
  
• Struggling and/or reluctant readers: Some children either struggle with or just do not enjoy reading. Consider introducing these children to audiobooks, graphic novels, and non-fiction.  All three are often underrated but perfectly valid formats that might appeal to children for whom fiction chapter books are overwhelming.
  
• “Tough Topics” - tweens and teens often have special topics they may be researching for either personal or academic reasons but are too shy to inquire about directly. Topics may include mental health, drugs, sex, or bullying. We encourage libraries to provide bookmarks, posters, and websites for passive reader’s advisory.
  

The wonderful thing about reader’s advisory is that it helps both you and your patrons discover new books. It’s an art that is sometimes described as “putting the right books into the hands of the right reader.”  You may feel that this is an intimidating task as you first start out, but with time you will gain familiarity with your library’s collection and this will become second nature. However, being good at reader’s advisory does NOT mean you know every single title on the shelves by memory! This is where book reviews, library journals, blogs, and other resources are a great tool to have. There are many wonderful organizations to help you find highly-recommended, high-quality books that you can add to your recommending repertoire. 

Some examples include:

Reading Rockets

The Classroom Bookshelf