Angela. - Outstanding Books for the College Bound: Titles and Programs for a New Generation

Outstanding Books for the College Bound

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Outstanding Books for the College Bound

Titles and Programs for a New Generation

Edited by Angela Carstensen

A YALSA publication

American Library Association

Chicago 2011

Angela Carstensen is head librarian at Convent of the Sacred Heart, a K12 independent school for girls in New York City. An active member of YALSA since 2000, she served as the chair of the 2010 YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults committee. She previously served for four years on the Alex Awards committee, and as chair in 2008.

2011 by the American Library Association. Any claim of copyright is subject to applicable limitations and exceptions, such as rights of fair use and library copying pursuant to Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright Act. No copyright is claimed for content in the public domain, such as works of the U.S. government.

While extensive effort has gone into ensuring the reliability of the information in this book, the publisher makes no warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein.

ISBNs: 978-0-8389-8570-0 (paper); 978-0-8389-9314-9 (PDF); 978-0-8389-9315-6 (ePub); 978-0-8389-9316-3 (Mobipocket); 978-0-8389-9317-0 (Kindle). For more information on digital formats, visit the ALA Store at www.alastore.ala.org and select eEditions.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Outstanding books for the college bound : titles and programs for a new generation / edited by Angela Carstensen.

p. cm.

A YALSA publication.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-8389-8570-0 (alk. paper)

1. College studentsBooks and readingUnited States. 2. YouthBooks and readingUnited States. 3. Young adults librariesUnited StatesBook lists. 4. Young adults librariesActivity programsUnited States. 5. Best booksUnited States. I. Carstensen, Angela. II. Young Adult Library Services Association.

Z1039.C65O9 2011

028.5'35dc22

2011011853

Cover design by Karen Sheets de Gracia. Cover image EDHAR/Shutterstock, Inc.

Contents

Angela Carstensen

by Paula Brehm-Heeger

by Mary Arnold

by Priscille Dando

by Judith Walker

by Penny Johnson

Revised and expanded by Angela Carstensen

Angela Carstensen

A new, revised Outstanding Books for the College Bound and Lifelong Learners (OBCB) list is created every five years by a committee comprising public and school librarian members of the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) and college librarian members of the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL).

The lists are primarily intended for students in grades 912 who wish to enrich and strengthen their knowledge of various subject areas in both classic and contemporary literature, and the purpose of the list is to provide reading recommendations to students of all ages who plan to continue their education beyond high school (as stated in the OBCB Policies, included as an to this volume). The lists also have a long history of appealing to adult lifelong learners, parents, teachers, administrators, and the librarians serving those constituencies.

Current criteria for choosing titles for the lists include readability, cultural and ethnic diversity, balance of viewpoints, variety of formats and genres, and title availability. Recently, the focus has been on a balance between modern classic titles and those that are newer or speak to current events.

This book is a compilation of the Outstanding Books for the College Bound lists from the past ten years (1999, 2004, 2009), and highlights practical suggestions for using the lists.

is the first history of the OBCB to be written and published. It demonstrates how the evolution of the OBCB has echoed (and at times contradicted) changes in the American educational system since its beginnings in 1959. This chapter answers the question: Who started the lists and why?

The following four chapters offer practical advice on using the lists with readers in school, public, and college libraries, with a chapter devoted to each, as well as a chapter devoted to lifelong learners. From collection development and readers advisory to curriculum development and programming, the OBCB lists are relevant for librarians serving teens, young adults, and adult lifelong learners.

Each year, changes were made in the OBCB tradition. In 1999, the title of the lists was changed, adding and Lifelong Learners to its name. In 2004, ACRL members were included on the selection committee for the first time. As for the books themselves, a comparison of the 1999 and 2004 lists shows that starting in 2004 the focus shifted from tried-and-true classics to recent literature, or modern classics.

The year 2004 also ushered in a new set of categories for the lists, created to mirror college curricula. In 1999 the five categories were fiction, nonfiction, biography, drama, and poetry. In 2004 they were changed to humanities, history, literature and language arts, science and technology, and social sciences. In 2009 the categories were updated to arts and humanities, history and cultures, literature and language arts, science and technology, and social sciences.

The introductions to the 2004 and 2009 lists are careful to state that the lists include a combination of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, biography, and drama, creating a conscious bridge to the past.

In the final section of this book, the 1999, 2004, and 2009 lists are combined and re-sorted by genre. It is fortuitous that these three lists incorporate the old and the new, the classic and the modern, creating genre lists with a broad range.

Annotations have been expanded to more adequately express the subject matter and importance of each title. Titles also honored by the YALSA Alex Awards, Best Books for Young Adults (BBYA), and Michael L. Printz Award committees are indicated. All publishers and publication dates are for the first edition, and any titles currently out of print are marked o.p.

As the Outstanding Books for the College Bound and Lifelong Learners tradition continues to help young students get the most out of their college education, to enhance the educational and cultural experiences of all readers, the tradition can never stop evolving. It will be exciting to witness where the OBCB lists might go from here, to continually reflect the times, the literature, and the librarians dedicated to their creation.

Part I

Forty Years of Outstanding Books

Origin, History, and Committee Processes

Paula Brehm-Heeger

In 1959 the National Education Association Journal published the first installment of what would become the long-running Outstanding Books for the College Bound and Lifelong Learners lists. While the list was first published in the December 1959 issue of the NEA Journal as Outstanding Fiction for College-Bound Students, it was actually compiled by the Book Selection Committee of the American Library Associations Young Adult Services Division (YASD). The original YASD selection committee was chaired by Marian L. Trahan from the Oakland Public Library and included a total of six members representing public libraries in Boston and Detroit, schools in New York and Connecticut, and one representative from the ALA Booklist and Subscription Books Bulletin. Of the many lists that have been produced on a regular and lasting basis by the Young Adult Library Services Association (formerly the Young Adult Services Division), the Outstanding Books for the College Boundlist appears to be the only one that was created at the request of an outside group.