Thoughts on Tween Sections

[Gina]

I'm a children's librarian from New England and wanted to gain some thoughts on tween sections.

For those not aware, tween programs and categories for books have been increasing in popularity and use in public libraries (the first of me seeing this put to practice was in 2012) and I'm enthusiastic to propose making a tween section in our library. The purpose of this is to help those in grades 4 to 6 locate their level of reading and make the browsing much easier instead of having beginner chapter books, longer chapter books, and small installments of series all put together which can be overwhelming for those who want to just browse.

I also feel that having a tween section in our children's library will help mark the progression of readers as they transition from early juvenile books to young adult, which in our library is grades 7 to high school (the YA section is also in a separate part of a library).

If you have any feedback of tween sections in your library that are utilized or the idea of how a tween section can affect your own children or patrons, please leave a comment.

[Melissa]

I haven't bothered browsing the book selection at my local library in ages, so I can't tell you what my library does now compared to, say ten or fifteen years ago. The last time I checked, though, they used the beginning chapter book/longer chapter book system.
I do think that saying the sections for younger readers, tweens, and teens or the grades/ages instead of saying they're beginner chapter books, longer kids' chapter books/middle grade, and YA could work better.

[Rebecca]

Gina, I work at the local library, so I can tell you what we have. Our children's room has separate sections for picture books, easy readers, and what you could call tween books--upper-elementary level books (YA is elsewhere). So the "chapter books" are separated from MG novels.

As a further guide, in our "easy reader" section, which runs from the really basic stuff (like the books with highly limited vocabulary--10-word books etc.) up through about 3rd-grade level chapter books, we use color-coded spine stickers to indicate the easy stuff and the harder stuff. It's a bit subjective, but basically one color for things that K-1 or 2 can read, and another color for the 2-3 grade stuff. That seems to work pretty well.

The 4-6 area has a separate section for graphic novels, but that's more because a lot of kids just want those.

Hope that's some help. I think making those distinctions is helpful, not just to the kids but to parents trying to ensure that their kids are doing at least some of their reading at an appropriate level.

[Jemima]

Just to help our international members again - what age range is tween considered to be?

[Rebecca]

Gina cites grades 4-6, so that would be ages 9-11 or so. I saw that as being almost exactly what we call middle grade.

[Jemima]

Rebecca wrote: "Gina cites grades 4-6, so that would be ages 9-11 or so. I saw that as being almost exactly what we call middle grade."
Thanks

[Gina]

Rebecca wrote: "Gina, I work at the local library, so I can tell you what we have..."

Thanks for sending that in. From what you told me, the current library I'm at does more or less have the same format and I'm unsure if the new library I'll be working in a few weeks will since I left there a few years ago.

Thanks for fielding the other question.