Long before Oprah's Book Club, there was the Young Critics' Club in Old Greenwich, Conn. For 25 years, what began as a group of 20 fifth-, sixth- and seventh-graders has been meeting after school on alternate Fridays at Perrot Library. Why? Because they want to get publishers' brand new galleys before anyone else, said Kate McClelland, founder of the club and former assistant director of the public library (she's recently semi-retired, but said she will not give up the club). "They're just as eager to read the new stuff as adults are," McClelland said. "The galleys make them feel like insiders." Only three galleys of any one title circulate so that students are reading and commenting on a variety of books.
Since then, that original group has divided into two: the Friday Young Critics' Club, which now consists of sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders, and a slightly younger group of fourth- and fifth-graders that meet on alternate Tuesdays, the Young Young Critics' Club--or Y2C2. Over the years, McClelland has developed several guidelines that have served her well in forming her students' book groups. Key is that she interviews all potential members, which "is important because it allows us to talk face to face about books." She believes that true booklovers will stick with the club; those "encouraged" by parents to join often weed themselves out.
At a recent Friday meeting of the Young Critics' Club, nary a square of carpet was visible as the middle-schoolers filed in, greeting "Mrs. Mac" and Mrs. (Mary) Clark, the librarian at Greenwich Country Day School. One boy had a cast on his right arm. "Can you turn pages?" asked McClelland with a tone of concern. She held up the first book, Epic by Conor Kostick, and Rebecca, eager to share her thoughts, gave it three out of four stars. Her one criticism: it's hard to tell when you're in the video game and when you're in the character's real life. Jeff, on the other hand, had no trouble differentiating between what was real and what was in the video--he gave Epic three and a half stars. When discussion ended, McClelland announced, "trade," and those students who wanted to read it next raised their hands and took the three available copies.
A lively debate ensued about whether or not the title of My Mother the Cheerleader by Robert Sharenow is misleading (a novel about the court-ordered integration of schools in 1960 New Orleans), and, after Mrs. Mac's brief book talk, no one seemed put off by the picture-book format of Peter Sís's The Wall, especially because many of the students had read his Tibet Through the Red Box.
The students were respectful of one another's comments yet unafraid to disagree with others' opinions. Clearly the parameters had been well established by Mrs. Mac and Mrs. Clark (and, in Y2C2, by Mrs. Mac and Mrs. K--Kathy Krasniewicz, the new director of Youth Services at Perrot).
McClelland sees direct benefits to the library from this group of young people: "I think we'd have a fiction section that sat on the shelf [otherwise]," she said. When McClelland first started talking with young people about what they were reading, it was always the same handful of authors--Brian Jacques, Roald Dahl--and they would read new books only if they knew of them. "Now the school librarians want to know what the Young Critics are reading," said McClelland. And school librarians aren't the only ones eager to learn what books the kids at Perrot Library like.
Last winter, Scholastic was in a bit of a quandary about the audience for an unusual book it was publishing: The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick. Not quite a graphic novel, but heavy on illustration, plot-driven yet with a complex back-story, quick-moving yet lengthy, the book broke all definitions of genre. Would older readers think it was too young for them because of all the pictures? Would younger readers find the format too sophisticated? To find the answers, the publisher gave several sets of galleys to McClelland for her Young Critics' appraisal.
Selznick now admits he was nervous. "They were the first kids to read it," he said. "They were the canary in the coal mine. It was a long two to three weeks waiting for the verdict." He confessed it was scarier anticipating the students' responses than it was awaiting word from traditional book critics. "You want reviewers to like your book, but [reviews] don't always correlate with the kids' response," said Selznick.
At first, the middle-school kids seemed less receptive, McClelland said. They read the book and liked it, but told her the book might be more appropriate for the younger group. The fourth- and fifth-graders immediately and openly embraced Hugo. When the time came to vote on their favorite books of 2007, the fourth- and fifth-graders unanimously voted The Invention of Hugo Cabret the best book of the year. But perhaps more surprisingly, had it not been for a certain influential eighth-grader campaigning for Wildwood Dancing by Juliet Marillier, McClelland said Hugo likely would have also swept the middle-school Young Critics as the favorite book of 2007.
Will the Young Critics of Old Greenwich be the canaries in the coal mine that foretell the results of a certain vote in Philadelphia? Next Monday we will all find out.--Jennifer M. Brown