Recently I went to Udaipur to attend a course on Library Educators. During this 1st contact period, a few books were on “Selection Of Good Books”. Having being associated with the library for some time now, I felt I had an insight as to what a good books.
I was in for a pleasant surprise, the sessions were not only that but much more! The discussions were so rich and helped us bring out the depths of what we needed to see in a book.
A detailed session with Gurbachanji helped us see the layers in a book. So back at Bookworm, one morning the mission was to create a shelf that would showcase the good books, sorry the “Outstanding” picture books. Books were pulled out from the shelves, from the boxes and from the stacks that were piled on the shelves.
Our search for “Outstanding” picture books had just begun. Lots of discussions followed, some names Sujata recollected to which Elaine would reply,”Yes, that one….But i haven’t seen it around in a while”!( One of our grey areas , some of our books have walked out of the library!). After spending a good 3 hrs, and engaging in some thoughtful exchanges, we were left with a shelf that had a handful of the ‘outstanding’ selection and a pile in front of it that had the books that didn’t make it to that shelf.
It is fascinating to see how we had our own choices but the outcome was always a unanimous decision.But making these choices was not easy. So many things crossed the mind. Some books had outstanding illustrations but lacked in story. So, maybe now we need to put out those brilliantly illustrated books onto another shelf! Wearing this lens, will definitely weed out our own collection and understanding and fine tune it and make us better practitioners.
Realising that this magic has to spread, Bookworm has organised a workshop on ‘Book Selection’ on the 14th of October at 11 am at the library and it is open to all. So not only as Library Educators but also as a community we can grow together to bring the richness of good books into the lives of children.
