Finding your reading niche can take time and a lot of trial and error, and growing a love for reading can’t be forced.
“It can be hard for anybody of any age, but definitely for young people to find that book that they’re really excited about,” said Siva Ramakrishnan, the director of Young Adult Programs & Services at the New York Public Library (NYPL).
Teens Are Reading, and More
Something as simple as proximity to books can encourage teens to pick up a book and read. For the NYPL, which serves communities in Manhattan, Staten Island and the Bronx across 89 locations, physical and e-book circulation was counted at 700,000 for teens alone during the 2023-24 fiscal year. This was an increase from the year before.
Contrary to what the recent teen and young adult literacy discourse might suggest, “young people are going in-person to libraries in greater numbers than in decades before,” said Ramakrishnan. But teens aren’t always going to libraries just to check out books. Public libraries provide space for teens to access Wi-Fi, do homework, socialize and participate in programs like 3D printing.
“Libraries have become places where young people gather,” said Ramakrishnan.
Banned books
Books often provide a welcome space for young people to see themselves reflected in what they are reading, but when books are banned, some groups of people can be left behind. While libraries have become a place for teens to congregate during non-school hours, this still does not guarantee access to all reading materials.
In 2023, 4,240 books were banned from schools and libraries across the nation — a 65% increase from the year prior. “The majority of these banned or challenged books are aimed at materials for young people, and disproportionately these are books that are written by or about people of color or people who identify as LGBTQ+,” said Ramakrishnan.
Book bans attack “two really critical components of the reading ecosystem that exist for kids,” said Ramakrishnan — schools and libraries.
The American Library Association began their Banned Books Week in 1982, and it still continues today. The NYPL has riffed off of this annual tradition with their year-round Protect The Freedom To Read initiative, which houses their Banned Book Club for teens.
“Our mission is to make knowledge accessible to everybody,” said Ramakrishnan.
When options are limited, especially the reading options that might open other students to a viewpoint that is unfamiliar to them, “that makes it harder for a young person to pick up a book and get really excited about it,” Ramakrishnan continued.
This year, NYPL’s Banned Book Club for teens is reading four titles: “Flamer” by Mike Curato, “Run: Book One” by John Lewis and Andrew Aydin, “Go With the Flow” by Lily Williams and Karen Schneemann, and “The Magic Fish” by Trung Le Nguyen. Each book is also paired with a discussion guide, which is accessible to educators and teens across the country, as well as online author Q&A which are led by NYPL teen ambassadors.
Reading is Reading is Reading
Developing healthy reading habits — such as confidence in navigating knowledge systems like libraries and museums, self-selecting appropriate texts, and distinguishing fact from fiction and opinion — needs to happen before long-term sustained reading can happen, said Torres. And these healthy reading habits need to happen early, between fourth and seventh grades.
According to Torres, adults who are responsible for facilitating healthy reading habits for students must understand that in this day and age, literacy is multimodal. Young people read many things in many different ways. For example, they might read fan fiction, audiobooks, physical books and anime subtitles.
“We need to keep in mind that their literacy encompasses so much more than just reading a book cover to cover,” said Torres. These multimodal reading habits shouldn’t be viewed as a threat to the physical book, Torres added, “but something that could be a companion to the physical book.”
If a student already reads anime subtitles, they might be interested in reading Light Novels — books that translate popular anime into prose, and sometimes include images. From there, an educator might help a student extract the themes or characters that they gravitate towards and recommend another book to read.
Pretty soon, a student who may not have known where to begin reading has an entire genre that they connect with and can continue reading, while still engaging in the other modalities of literacy that they already practiced.
One popular platform that educators and parents can use to help students find books within their interests is NoveList, which provides a database of reviews, and informs the reader of a book’s tone. Additionally, “[NoveList] gives you all kinds of helpful ways to pair a book with the next book in a reader’s journey,” said Torres.
There are also other ways to support students in developing healthy reading habits towards greater reading stamina.
Librarians conduct needs assessments for students, or what Torres calls a “Tastes and Habits” interest survey. These assessments evaluate what a reader needs from pacing to complexity, said Torres. Students may also have cultural and life experiences that can inform the type of reading they might gravitate towards.
Developing reading stamina
But what about the kids who aren’t at the library every day?
One way to reach students who may not be as immersed in literary spaces is to remind them that “there are many different kinds of reading lives that we can develop,” said Torres. There isn’t one type of reading and it doesn’t have to just look like reading book after book, she continued.
“It’s to our disservice and the disservice of…young people that we shame them for not being able to sit down and read a 200-page novel from beginning to end,” said Torres.
When students need to become skilled at more technical reading, facilitators and educators need to teach students to diversify the ways they can dig deep into the text.
Because data does suggest that, overall, young people are reading less, it’s important to expand the reach of literary spaces as far as they can reach, said Ramakrishnan. For example, the NYPL places video games next to books about mental health, anime or sci-fi. “We want teens to feel like our library spaces are their own,” said Ramakrishnan.
