Readers’ advisory training begins with ensuring that all staff understand why readers’ advisory is an important practice for public libraries. The first half of this training outlines why developing readers’ advisory skills should matter to those who work in public libraries.

This part begins with the how of readers’ advisory, and introduces the framework of readers’ advisory: Nancy Pearl’s Doorways into Fiction, and appeal factors, largely pioneered by Joyce Saricks and implemented and refined by NoveList.

(There are lots of other fantastic people working in readers’ advisory. This is an intro for staff who have little RA experience).

4 Doorways into Fiction – Nancy Pearl

When people use plot or subject as a jumping off point to recommend books, they’re missing out on what really happens in our reading lives. When we are searching for our next great read, we want to recreate that pleasurable experience—the headlong rush to the last page, the falling into a character’s life, the deeper understanding we’ve gotten of a place or a time, or the feeling of reading words that are put together in a way that causes us to look at the world differently. We need to start thinking about what it is about a book that draws us in, rather than what the book is about.

The four doorways into fiction help to capture what it is a reader loved about a book. Many books can be appreciated for any of the elements – especially the truly great ones – but it’s what the reader loved most about it that can be the key to unlocking another book they might like.

CHARACTER

Fall in love with, or love to hate, these character-driven novels. You feel like you know these people, like they are flesh and blood, even if they only exist on a page.

• Pride and Prejudice

Whether you love analyzing the motives behind Darcy’s action, love laughing at Mrs. Bennet or Mr. Collins, or wander what poor Mary is thinking, readers love this novel for the complex characters.

• The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

This is a character-driven novel that is intricately plotted. Unlike some mystery/crime fiction, it’s definitely not action-packed (there are many pages devoted to eating sandwiches). For many readers, what drew them in was a curiosity of what makes  Lisbeth Salander tick.

• Harry Potter series

Now, NoveList identifies this as a plot-driven and world-building focused book, and I agree. But what made Harry Potter such a phenomenal success is it really is a “four doorway” book— the characters are also beloved, complex, and you identify and cheer with many of them to the end.

• Fight Club

The unreliable narrator is half the appeal of this book.

SETTING

Some books win you over by transporting you to another time or place, whether that’s Narnia through a wardrobe, all those New York novels where the city feels like a character in and of itself, the planet Mars, or literally time traveling it’s heroine to 17th century Scotland. These are the books for readers who love a strong sense of place in their novels.

In this section, I invite participants to share their examples of books that have great settings.

LANGUAGE

Other books are memorable for the way in which they tell the story more than the story itself. Winter’s Bone makes the meth-fueled backwaters of the Ozarks sound just lovely, and in 100 years I bet The Fault in Our Stars is remembered more for its Tumblr-friendly quotes than the story.

The beauty of Jacqueline Woodson’s memoir-in-verse Brown Girl Dreaming is in the language, and I couldn’t relay the basics of the plot of any of Marilynne Robinson’s novels, but I could tell you I savored every sentence. 

I remember an anecdote in Francine Prose’s Reading Like a Writer, where she tells the story of a literary agent aghast when one of her writers confesses that his greatest ambition is just to write really great sentences. Great sentences are the reason that many stories resonate with certain readers. 

STORY

These are largely plot-driven novels that have a great “hook” — that one sentence explanation of the story that makes you eager to check them out. (So, it may not matter exactly what the story is about, but one that has a big idea or concept, or a complicated plot that readers who are drawn to story love). They are great page-turners that are unputdownable.

• The Hunger Games

A teenage girl volunteers to take her sister’s place in the arena, where children fight to the death for a chance for glory and fame for the entertainment of the elite. Talk about a hook! It’s a perfect blend of philosophical ideas and non-stop action.

• Catch 22

While Catch 22 is very character-driven — who doesn’t fall in love with all the ridiculous cast — its appeal also lies in its nonlinear structure and the themes, and the driving question— will Yossarian defect? And what happened to Snowden?

• Jurassic Park

Scientists hatch dinosaurs from their frozen DNA, and open a theme park, then they EAT EVERYONE because nature cannot be contained.

• The Notebook

Universally panned by critics, yet even they recognized the mass appeal of the plot of this book. Love conquers all, not only once, but twice. Boy from the wrong side of the tracks wins the girl, then when her memory fails her because of Alzheimer’s, draw her back again by telling the story of their courtship.

These four doorways are helpful in framing what it is about a book that draws a reader into the story. These ideas give readers a shared language to communicate to you, the readers’ advisor, why they liked a particular book so you will have more to go on than simply the plot descriptors (which in many cases are not the primary reasons a person loves a story).

Appeal factors add layers and dimension to this conversation.

APPEAL FACTORS – Joyce Saricks and NoveList (read more about appeal factors here)

I wouldn’t say that this approach to readers’ advisory competes with Nancy Pearl’s doorways, just that it adds another layer or dimension. There’s considerable overlap, but with doorways, we’re looking at the primary appeal of a book for any given reader, and with appeal factors, we’re viewing them as constellations or a formula that helps us identify what type a book will be a good fit for a particular reader.

PACING has just three categories, because it focuses on extremes: fast, slow, or intensifying—a book that picks up speed as it approaches the climax.

TONE adds another dimension to any book. Examples: bleak, hopeful, heartwarming, or sarcastic. What are some stories with similar plots or subjects but very different tones? Look at WWII novels — what words are blurbs or publisher descriptions using to communicate tone? 

For this section, I pull a variety of novels about the Holocaust or World War II and put a list of “tone” descriptors from NoveList and have staff break into small books to discuss the different tones of the books, then we share back to the large group.

WRITING STYLE adds another dimension: do people want banter-filled stories full of dialogue, gritty tales of violence, or stories that are lush, with immersive, descriptive details.

CHARACTER

Even if character is not the primary “door” through which people approach fiction, the type of character may have a big influence on whether or not they like a story. For romance novels readers, whether the hero is brooding and gruff or good-natured and friendly will make a big difference to the reader. Mystery readers may want quirky amateur detectives or love books that incorporate the villain’s twisted perspective.

• Brooding – Rochester from Jane Eyre, or think of the parody @broodingYAhero on Twitter.
• Twisted – Raskolnikov from Crime and Punishment or Alex from A Clockwork Orange
• Quirky – think Sookie Stackhouse or a character from a Frederick Bachman novel
• Strong female – yes, this is an actual appeal that NoveList recognizes, because it’s something that people ask for – think Anne Shirley, Becky Sharp, or Janie Crawford

STORYLINE – think beyond plot – what is the structure of the story., not just the subject or theme.  Two books may share a very similar subject but have completely different

Sweeping – (mulitgenerational, multiple settings) – think Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi.

Nonlinear – a Fibonacci sequence of nested stories like Midwinterblood by Marcus Sedgwick, or a story told in flashbacks to increase suspense like Trainspotting or Slaughterhouse Five. 

Action-packed – a Dan Brown or Tom Clancy novel. 

Open-ended – “what just happened”? These are the books you’ll ponder for days reflecting on. Think James Joyce, Enrique Vila-Matas, Virginia Woolf.

These are just a few examples of appeal factors – read more about them in NoveList’s guide to appeal factors (2018 edition). 

This concludes my first staff training on readers’ advisory—we then break into activities that are designed to help staff explore their own reading taste and what their knowledge base is. I’ll share those activities soon!