The importance—and joy—of classroom libraries
by Gayle Martin
I remember the first time I fell so in love with a book that I lost all sense of time and place.
It was around 1972 or 1973, in Miss Lewis’s first grade class. Miss Lewis was young and pretty with dark hair that she piled into a beehive hair-do. She was kind and her classroom was a warm, safe place. Under the windows facing out onto the playground area, she had low bookshelves filled with all sorts of books. In front of the books was a carpet the class would sit on for story time. If we got to class early or we finished our seat work, we could pull books off the shelves, sit on the carpet and read them if we wanted to. One day—I remember it being one of those rainy and dark spring mornings when the light feels more like dusk than dawn—I got to class early and pulled a children’s biography of Helen Keller off Miss Lewis’s shelves and laid down on the carpet to read it. At least, I assume that’s what I did because what I really remember is Miss Lewis leaning over me, touching my shoulder, and saying, “Gayle. The bell rang. We’re starting class. Will you please go to your seat?” while the other first graders giggled.
I don’t know which Helen Keller book I read, but maybe this one? I also loved stories about dogs, so 6- or 7-year-old me probably would’ve chosen it because of the pup on the cover.
Memories are odd. I probably only remember this one because of the embarrassment of the giggles, but it doesn’t feel embarrassing to me now. It feels safe and joyful and…a little magical. Of course, I remember being obsessed with Helen Keller for a while after that, but the important thing about that memory isn’t what I was reading. It is that feeling of being completely enveloped in a book. The important thing is that it was the beginning of my life as someone who loves reading and writing and stories in general, which is really the beginning of who I am. And it happened because Miss Lewis had a classroom library and I, even as a very young student, was allowed to just go grab a book and sit and read it.
And when I think back on my development as a reader, all the books I loved happened to me in a similar way—I found them on a classroom, school, or public library shelf, or a teacher or friend—or, later, a student—recommended them to me. Through all my school years, including my undergraduate degree in English, I can remember only one book that was assigned reading that I can say I loved or that truly carried me away like the book about Helen Keller did. (In case you’re wondering, it was East of Eden by John Steinbeck, which I read as part of an American literature class my junior year of high school.) Sure, there were plenty of assigned books I thought were fine or that I could appreciate for their artistry or cultural significance (OK. Sure. Shakespeare blah blah blah…), some I couldn’t stand (ironically, The Pearl, also by John Steinbeck), and at least one that traumatized me (Where the Red Fern Grows, I will never forgive you). But there is something quintessentially different about choosing to read and to keep reading a book because you want to without worrying about what anyone else wants you to get out of it or remember about it or feel about it. You may comprehend, discuss the themes, and analyze the language of a book that you are assigned to read. And all that is important. But you accrue into yourself a book that you choose and that you love. And that is joy.
I started teaching in Rochester Community Schools in 1988 at Van Hoosen Middle School. In the summer of 1989, RCS paid part of my tuition for attending the Oakland Writing Project intensive course at Oakland Schools. That course shaped many of my classroom practices for the rest of my career because it provided a pedagogical underpinning for what I sensed intrinsically—the best reading and writing instruction is authentic, not assigned, formulaic, or contrived. Part of this program was reading Nancy Atwell’s In the Middle, which explained how she used a reading and writing workshop approach with her middle school students. Student choice and in-class reading time is integral to the reading workshop approach, and, therefore, so was a classroom library. So, when I returned to school that fall, I had cobbled together a small classroom library, mostly from my own collection of books and from old used copies I bought cheap at thrift stores. Mind you, I didn’t have a classroom, but I did have a library that I literally carted around to all the different rooms that I taught in.
When I taught middle school ELA, I used something close to Atwell’s model one or two days a week, and my classroom library grew to include more books that my students were reading and recommending to me and each other in their reading logs and in conferences. The first time I ever heard about a boy named Harry Potter was from a student who was trying to explain the plot of The Sorcerer’s Stone to me in her reading log. I picked up R.L Stine and Christoper Pike books, several Michael Crichton titles, books in the Redwall series, and (much to my own distaste) a copy of Flowers in the Attic and A Child Called It, none of which I had the desire to read but that were all wildly popular with my students at the time. Contrary to the fears of some parents in 2022, my classroom library was shaped far more by books my students wanted to read and enjoyed than by books I wanted to “indoctrinate” them with. Just as I’m sure Miss Lewis had no hidden agenda to indoctrinate me into socialism or into diversity and inclusion in education by planting that Helen Keller biography on her books shelves in 1973 (all of which Helen Keller was strongly committed to, by the way), I had no hidden agenda other than connecting kids with books that would be meaningful to them. So they would actually read. Which I was hired to teach them to do.
By the end of my career, I was teaching mostly English electives, mostly to high school juniors and seniors. Once again, my classroom library was integral to my classes, especially Literature of the Strange, an elective focused on the genres of mystery, sci-fi, fantasy, and horror. If you have never tried to get high school juniors and seniors to read an assigned book in a required credit class after they’ve had 10 or 11 years of learning how to avoid reading as much as possible while still maintaining good grades, let me just tell you: It’s a negotiation. My “deal” with my students was simple. We would learn the elements of each genre, read and analyze a few short pieces together, but then they would spend most of each unit reading a book of their choice in that genre, mostly in class. Before they chose their books for a unit, I would pull all the books from my library in that genre. I’d display them at the front of the class and give books talks on some of my favorites. Then students could peruse and check out my books as they liked. Some did, some got their own copies of a book I recommended, most still chose their own books. Those book talk days and the reading days where I would walk around and have short chats with students about the book they were reading were some of my favorite “lessons.” And I learned that kids—even busy, grade-obsessed juniors and seniors—will read and will often enjoy it, if they have a choice of book and if they are given class time to do the reading.
There’s Yoda, Bigwig, and Fiver watching over my classroom library at SCHS in maybe 2016 or 2017.
As a child, reading brought me joy, and as a teacher, talking about and sharing books with students and watching them read and love a book brought me just as much joy—which was sometimes a difficult thing to hold on to as a public school teacher. More importantly, the National Council of Teachers of English and research indicates that having a diverse classroom library is a best practice for literacy instruction.
But now books in schools have become politicized, and challenging books and demonizing librarians and teachers who want to provide diverse books—meaning all kinds of books that will appeal to all kinds of students—has become a political campaign tactic for some. If they succeed in censoring books or even scaring teachers into self-censoring books, so much joy will be drained from our schools. That thought breaks this old English teacher’s heart.
That’s why Free to Read Rochester is committed to supporting our teachers and students by donating books to classroom libraries: for the love and joy and magic of reading.
UDATE : A reader (and former student and colleague) has brought to my attention that the author on the Helen Keller biography book cover I posted is Lorena A. Hickcock, also known as “Hick,” a pioneering female journalist and “intimate” friend of Eleanor Roosevelt. Hick also wrote many other books, including a children’s biography of both Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt, a book about Annie Sullivan, Helen Keller’s teacher, and many more. So, maybe Miss Lewis was a little more progressive than I knew!
