Displays: Oldies but Goodies
by Denise Ryan, niseryan@hotmail.com
Right now I’m pairing new fiction with older books. Yup, right out there in valuable display space I’m putting elderly books with dated covers and silly titles like Fat, a Love Story (Barbara Wersba, 1987) and Secrets of the Shopping Mall (Richard Peck, 1979). But here’s the trick: Right next to these books I’m displaying hot new titles with similar themes. So, that’s the gimmick – old book, new book. How similar, yet how different! Why not read them both and compare?
For instance, with Fat, a Love Story, I’ve paired last year’s Huge by Sasha Paley. Both books are about weight, dieting, and love. I can’t keep Huge on the shelf, but Fat is really good too and it never moves. Never. The cover is just too…yesterday. (A girl with a bad haircut is eating a piece of cheesecake while a thinner couple drives by in a convertible. Back in the day, it was probably the coolest thing ever. Now? It looks like something your mother probably read.)
For a while now, I’ve been trying to get young patrons to read worthwhile older books, urging them to ignore the dreary decades-old covers in favor of plot, characters etc. But that’s been a doomed effort for the most part, and I’ve seen lots of patrons reject one edition of a book one minute, only to seize the exact same book – with a newer cover – the next.
So, I’m really excited that this “pairing” approach seems to be working. The kids still make fun of the unfashionable covers (that’s half the fun), but they’re taking the old books along with their newer counterparts. Somehow, the association between the two gives the older books credibility and they’re getting some attention again – just in time to avoid the “weed pile.”
Here is a short list of books I’ve paired, but possibilities are endless!
Theme: Social misfits
Freak (2007) by Marcella Pixley
The Seventh Grade Weirdo (1992) by Lee Wardlaw
Theme: Body image
Huge (2007) by Sasha Paley
Fat, A Love Story (1987) by Barbara Wersba
Theme: The mall
It’s a Mall World After All (2006) by Janette Rallison
Secrets of the Shopping Mall (1979) by Richard Peck
Theme: Sexual assault
Safe (2007) by Susan Shaw
Are You in the House Alone? (1976) by Richard Peck
Theme: Boarding school
A Great and Terrible Beauty (2003) by Libby Bray
And Both Were Young (1983) by Madeleine L’Engle
Theme: Future societies
The Declaration (2007) by Gemma Malley
The Vandal (1979) by Ann Schlee
Theme: Survival in the Alaskan wilderness
The Trap (2006) by John Smelcer
Death Walk (1991) by Walt Morey
Theme: Summer camp
Camp Rules (2007) by Jordan Roter
The Goats (1987) by Brock Cole
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< ![CDATA[What a great and creative idea! Say hello to all of your kids for me.]]>
< ![CDATA[[...] Read More >> [...] ]]>
< ![CDATA[I love this idea! I just added a bunch of new books to my Goodreads queue after reading this post.]]>
< ![CDATA[What have you called your display?]]>
< ![CDATA[It does sound like a cool idea. However, here they never keep the book covers. Which means no covers to display (the tech folks see it as too costly in maintenance to keep covers on books).
So those of us in charge of displays resort to things like printing a color copy of the damn cover off Amazon or such a site, cutting it out of the paper, then pasting to a piece of cardboard to make a mock up. Anyhow, like the idea, but slim odds I could pull it off here, and lord knows we need stuff like that.]]>
< ![CDATA[I just started a library in a small private school. I kept the paper jackets and cut them and posted them all over the walls with a sign that says "What's in our library?" and also provided a link to our site on librarything. It is much easier to sell a book to a student by pulling the plain black or brown book off the shelf and pointing to the really cool cover, saying, "This is that book."
Having our books on librarything helps as well.]]>
< ![CDATA[Hi! And thanks so much for recommending my novel Seventh-Grade Weirdo on your list of oldies but goodies. I'm honored! You'll also be able to find the book under the title My Life as a Weirdo.
(Troll Books republished the novel under a different name after Scholastic let it go out of print.)
Very weirdly yours,
Ms. Lee Wardlaw]]>
< ![CDATA[Great idea! And these old covers are a scream. That HUGE hair with those HUGE glasses - AAAAAAGH! Run away! Run away!
If you find something with a members only jacket, post it, do!]]>
< ![CDATA[For your pairing display, do you simply place the pairs together, or are you also providing some sort of poster/bookmarks etc. with the various "themes" or other info on them?]]>