PNLA Quarterly, Vol. 63 No.4 Summer 1999

YRCA in China

Greetings from Shanghai where YRCA is alive and well in the land of Mao.

Four years ago, my wife and I married YRCA books to the Battle of the Books concept. What a great way to sell a grant to the Beaverton Education Foundation--kids nominating books, kids voting on books, kids exposed to a variety of genres in a well-established program run by an organization bent on promoting the love of reading to kids. It worked three times, and it would have kept working except the librarians heard a call from the Far, Far East and had a burning desire to jump start a very fragmented library program in a school with a huge budget.

My first year duties included kids 4th through 8th grades--only 20% American, many kids from Hong Kong, Korea, Taiwan, India, Australia, and a smattering from every other end of the Earth. Ninety-eight percent go on to college. Book idols include Roald Dahl, Paul Jennings, Morris Gleitzman, Enid Blydin, and, of course, this new author of the Harry Potter books. They are also very familiar with some of our most respected Amercian authors--RL Stein, Ann Martin--but we are working on that. They read and read and read and read. We don't have paperbacks here but hardcover is fine, better than fine. Imagine a trek along the Silk Road from Xi'an to Kashgar--no fast food joints, or candy, or Hard Rock Café--what wouldn't you eat at the end of the trail? That's what we have, so that's what they read, and read and read--takes my breath away.

To establish myself in the eyes of this high-powered community, I needed to bring direction and energy. I needed a high profile, public relations band wagon that would open the doors to the kind of library support that has never been solicited or tapped here.

Seeking money to support this program was nothing like looking for money in Oregon. Parents or corporations pay between $14 and $18,000 to have their students walk through our doors. But even with a supportive principal, I was still an unknown; the way the money is micro-managed here, I needed a very strong case. I was told that maybe we should wait a year.

But life's too short, especially in the international circuit--a year was too long. I wanted this community to buzz with excitement immediately. I wanted the community to be knocking down the doors, parents wanting and willing to volunteer, and an administration extremely pleased with the kind of high impact library program they had never seen here before.

I kept pushing and pushing and finally YRCA put it over the top. Move over 50th anniversary of the Peoples Republic. Not since Mao came cruising into this city in 1949 has Shanghai seen such fireworks.

Monies were approved and books picked up at Powells over Christmas; one set for each of our eleven grade 4/5 classrooms and at least two more copies to be circulated out of the library. A very useful College Bowl type buzzer system was sent to my folks to avoid the shipping to China, and the kick-off assembly was staged in mid-January.

The results of this five-month program are now in. Our BIG BATTLE was held last Friday and the numbers were staggering. I have always had great buy-in for this promotion, but it was always a library stand-alone program. Teachers in Oregon are so straight jacketed with benchmarks and constraints of every kind, that as much as they liked the program, they let it ride on its own energy and the energy of the library (which was considerable). Teachers here have much more flexibility.

As you cruise down the grade 4/5 hallways, you see YRCA banners, drawings and book cover illustration, dramatic interpretations of favorite scenes, and teachers jumping up and down like cheerleaders as their kids battled everyday up to the final battle. Lists on the walls included characters, settings, plots, and questions. The students write all the questions on databases installed on every desktop in the grade 4/5 wing as well as in the library. After hearing and responding to so many questions about the books, the pleasure of these books remains in their heads for a very long time.

In all 11 classes, just about every book has been read. For our ESOL students, we had high school volunteers translate many of the books on tape. For those students who found some of these books still too challenging, we had parent volunteers as well as our specialists reading with the students individually. For those who continue to think that class size doesn't matter and that a good teacher can teach 30 as well as 15, you need to rethink that position again. We have no more than 15 to a class and the opportunities in such an ideal setting are wonderful.

So what did our kids like? Of course they liked Gordon Korman, Gary Paulson, Karen Cushman, and Mary Downing Hahn, but they also liked Nina Bowden, Ruth White, and on and on. Our votes were widely distributed, ending in a tie between The Gentleman Outlaw and Me, Eli and The Chicken Doesn't Skate. The other titles were only a few votes behind. When we checked our circulation numbers for other books by these authors, the numbers were through the roof.

Although China doesn't quite fit into the geographical region of the Pacific Northwest Library Association, my school and my students don't know that. We are reaping the same benefits that students in your States and Provinces are enjoying, so we will continue to nominate and vote and battle.

Thanks PNLA for continuing this great program. You are now reaching around the world. When it comes to voting next year, just let us know, and we can get you our totals for an Eastern point of view. My wife and I will be changing roles next year. Instead of the grades 4-8, Susan will be leaving her grade 6/8 language arts/social studies duties to join me in splitting grades pre- K-7. Our fifth graders are so pumped we can't imagine not doing a Battle of the Books at the middle school level as well. In fact, we have signed up to present our YRCA/Battle of the Books program at next year's Association of Central East Asian Schools (CERCOS) conference in Taiwan. Nice to know that a least one of the battles over here is friendly, productive, and having a very positive impact on young people from around the world.