How’s the Library Doing? Part1

I give the Starke County Library a "B+" in the category, Literature for High School Readers.

How’s the Starke County Public Library Doing? One test is how well they are meeting the reading requirements of ambitious high school students. To do this test I selected a high school literature summer reading list on the Internet, more or less at random. Then I searched our library’s collection to see what they have. The results were pleasing! There were 54 books on the list designed for the range of student talents. SCPLS did not have 6 of the books on the list. That is a 89% score. Also a plus, the Library did have critical texts for several of the books.

I will continue to do further testing of the Library’s Collection in other areas. I welcome your comments. How do you think the Library is doing? Do they have the books that you want? Web Site: http://www.scpl.lib.in.us/

Here is the list that I used for this test of High School Literature:



Grade 9
Parrot in the Oven - Victor Martinez
Walk Two Moons - Sharon Creech
The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants - Ann Brashares
Curtain - Agatha Christie
Lesson Before Dying - Ernest Gaines
David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
Little Women - Louisa May Alcott
Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury
Stargirl - Jerry Spinelli
Good Earth - Pearl S. Buck
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea Jules Verne

Grade 10
Prom - Laurie Halse Anderson
DID NOT HAVE: Zee's Way - Kristin Butcher
DID NOT HAVE: Once the Acacias Bloomed - Fred Spiegel
Age of Innocence - Edith Wharton
Lords of Discipline - Pat Conroy
DID NOT HAVE: All But My Life - Gerta Weissman Klein October
Sky - Homer Hickam
Dune - Frank Herbert
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - Ken Kesey (book, video and critical notes)
Gone with the Wind - Margaret Mitchell
Things They Carried - Tim O'Brien

Grade 11
Bleachers - John Grisham
DID NOT HAVE: Death Wind - William Bell
The Car - Gary Paulsen
Beloved - Toni Morrison
Native Son - Richard Wright
The Joy Luck Club - Amy Tan
Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
All the Kings Men - Robert Penn Warren
Light in August - William Faulkner
Anne Frank Remembered - Miep Gies
Moby Dick - Herman Melville
Farewell to Arms - Ernest Hemingway
Poisonwood Bible - Barbara Kingsolver
The Jungle - Upton Sinclair
Song of Solomon - Toni Morrison
The Native Son - Richard Wright
The Sun Also Rises - Ernest Hemingway
Oldest Living Confederate Widow - Allan Gurganu
This Boy's Life : A Memoir - Tobias Wolff

Grade 12
Don't Look Behind You - Lois Duncan
Teen Idol - Meg Cabot
DID NOT HAVE: The Lottery - Beth Goobie
Crime and Punishment - F. Dostoyevsky
The Mill on the Floss - George Eliot
DID NOT HAVE: Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte (also available Critical Text)
Doctor Zhivago - Pasternak
Le Morte d'Arthur - Sir Thomas Malory
The Great Train Robbery - Michael Crichton
Mists of Avalon - M. Z. Bradley
Hard Times - Charles Dickens (also available Critical Text)
Scarlet Pimpernel - Emmuska Orczy