"I liked this book, because I like hockey." A grade 4 male responds to Brady Brady and the Runaway Goalie by M. Shaw and C. Temple.
The mentors' selection of books corresponds with reports on young boys' book selections (Barrs, 1994). Boys have a tendency to judge a book by its cover. Barrs noted that boys would not even contemplate reading books that dealt with the female experience or suggested to them to be a "girl's" book from the content, title or cover illustrations. Just as the curriculum is seen to be stereotyped in the UK study on gender and achievement (Gender and Literacy, 2004) into feminine and masculine subjects, the researchers were aware that the book collection had to be just right by appealing to both the girls and boys in the classrooms and to the mentors who were choosing them each week. A recent example of mentors resisting a book happened at our new site, a local Middle School. The mentors were late selecting a book and reluctantly chose the Cave by Diane Siebert (2002). The researcher arrived at the school to find the mentor team arguing amongst themselves, refusing to read the book. "We're going to get another book; the book is terrible; look how it starts." The researcher asked them why they thought it was terrible. The mentors shared their concerns "It is poetry, it is too long. The students won't like it". The researcher actually thought it was the mentors who did not like the book and asked them to try and read it to the class, as there really was not enough time to get another book. The mentors read with little enthusiasm. The children responded in a lack luster manner. At a certain point, their teacher intervened and asked the students to try and ask some questions beginning with 'I wonder...' This is one of the responses in the student logs. With assistance, the mentors and children became more animated and some interesting questions were raised. Here we are reminded that the mentors are not teachers but they are developing an understanding of what will interest the students.