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“Miss, What’s An Orgy?” Finding Safe Books For Advanced Readers

Chris Edge considers the tricky issue of finding age-appropriate content for precocious readers…

Chris Edge
by Chris Edge
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When the best readers in your class have devoured every children’s book on the shelves and are looking for more challenging material, where do they go next? Often the answer is for them to seek out the cool teen reads that are being made into blockbuster films – series such as The Hunger Games and Divergent. But these are YA titles aimed firmly at a teen or even adult readership and can include contentious content, with sex, drugs and violence often on the menu.

In the USA, many of these books are ‘challenged’ by concerned parents who campaign for edgy titles to be withdrawn from school libraries and classrooms. But surprises can even lurk in the most innocent looking books too – as I found when I read the comic book Asterix in Switzerland as a child and added to my vocabulary the word ‘orgy’, which my teacher helpfully defined as a “special kind of party”!

So what can you do to help the pupils in your class find the right books that will challenge them as readers without sending them into therapy? The key is to help them to make informed choices. If a nine-year-old has seen a trailer for the latest cinematic instalment of The Maze Runner and is now desperate to read the book too, make sure that you’re aware of what they’ll find on its pages, such as scenes of violence against children.

Informed choices

If you’ve not got time to read every ‘hot’ new series that is creating a classroom buzz, why not form a staff/parent reading group to read and discuss these books? This will help you to make decisions about the titles you want to stock in the school library – and you could even create display cards to flag any content issues in the ones you choose. Involving parents in the decisions you make can also help to head off any complaints about the availability of these books.

Equally important is to draw on your knowledge of your students when considering the books you recommend. You need to be confident that they are capable of handling not only the actual language and sentence structures of the novel, but also its content. Some of your pupils will be emotionally mature enough to tackle teen novels that deal with sensitive issues such as the loss of a parent in Patrick Ness’s A Monster Calls, for example. However others will need the reassurance provided by books aimed at their age group featuring younger protagonists dealing with issues that will be familiar to them from their own lives.

Sometimes in Key Stage 2, the focus in the classroom can be on getting less-confident readers up to speed, with high-level readers seen as self-sufficient and not needing any help with their book choices. However the danger can be that children falling into this category can end up reading too narrowly – for example, only picking books from a single genre or sticking to a favourite author. We need to remember that the best readers are ‘deep and wide’ ones, who enjoy all kinds of fiction.

To extend the variety and challenge of the books that you recommend to your most able readers, it’s a good idea to consider ageappropriate alternatives to popular YA titles. For example for readers who aren’t quite ready for The Hunger Games but want the ‘cool’ factor associated with this series, why not recommend The Underland Chronicles, a series for younger readers that Suzanne Collins wrote before she penned the hit YA series? Or if your pupils are hooked on science fiction, you could suggest Phoenix by S.F. Said, an epic space adventure about a boy who’s searching for his father.

Role models

In the same way that the genre known as ‘YA’ can actually span titles for readers in their early teens to twenty-something fiction fans, the best children’s fiction can provide readers with ambitious language and challenging themes the equal of any to be found in books targeted at a more adult audience. Keep an eye on the winners of prestigious children’s books awards such as the Carnegie Medal and the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize to find exciting reads that will enthral your most able readers.

Another way to provide pupils with more challenging reads is to reach for the classics. From The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells to Arthur Conan Doyle’s tales of Sherlock Holmes, many students will be familiar with these characters and stories from blockbuster films and television shows. Getting to know classic authors such as Charles Dickens can move confident readers out of their comfort zones as they encounter unfamiliar vocabulary, sentence structures and settings, but unlock a treasure chest of timeless characters and stories as well.

Finally, reading books recommended to them by people they respect and trust, such as older pupils and other adults, can also help turn high-level readers on to new titles and authors. Think about how you could build on links with your local secondary schools to share information about the books their students are reading at Key Stage 3. Perhaps you could arrange a visit from a Year 7 or 8 class to talk to your Key Stage 2 students about the YA books they would recommend. Sharing, swapping and talking about books with others is a powerful way for people of any age to find new literary paths to explore.

New directions

From classics to contemporary children’s fiction, here are ten great reads for confident readers:

The Time Machine by H.G. Wells

For any fans of Doctor Who, this is a chance to read the adventures of the original time traveller.

The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle

One of the master sleuth’s most notorious cases – a gripping tale of detection set in the wilds of Dartmoor.

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

The original, classic ghost story that’s since been brought to life by the Muppets, as well as Bill Murray.

Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson

A timeless tale of adventure that will build pupils’ reading stamina.

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

This extraordinarily strange tale is filled with inventive word play and humour.

His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman

A multi-award-winning trilogy that mixes fantasy, parallel worlds and weighty themes.

Hitler’s Angel by William Osborne

For readers looking for high-octane thrills, this high-concept WWII-set story creates a blockbuster tale.

The Wolves of Willoughby Chase by Joan Aiken

A thrilling historical adventure for confident readers with a taste for tales of the past.

Fly By Night by Frances Hardinge

The polished craft of Hardinge’s prose will enrich every reader’s vocabulary.

The Last Wild by Piers Torday

This page-turner is a must-read for dystopia fans or readers concerned about the environment.

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