Place: what a great theme for an English teacher's conference, in this official Year of Reading. It's such a conceptually rich and emotionally resonant topic through which to explore the many pleasures and challenges of reading; for teachers, and for students. For place is not only a physical location; it is also a powerful idea and a powerfully…

Examines the place of fiction in the library collection, the attitudes and practices of Australian librarians with respect to fiction, and the factors, including historical ones, which have shaped these attitudes. A proposal for a new approach to fiction in public libraries is presented. (Author/CLB)

This article summarizes some of the recent research on boys and reading that has been primarily conducted in Australia but is also available online to international readers. The research makes it clear that many boys are still reading, but competing claims on their busy lives easily sidetrack them from making reading their main activity. Educators…

Enthusiasm for and a commitment to literature are the essential tools needed to successfully promote the enriching, challenging, and thought-provoking world of books. This paper focuses on the promotion of literature inside the classroom, inside the library, and in the wider community. Programs at Methodist Ladies' College (Australia), a boarding…

This article describes a theoretically informed methodology for eliciting the voices of adolescent boys identified by their teachers and parents as reluctant leisure time readers. Similar methods have also been used to draw out the voices of the boys' parents to understand their efforts to guide and maintain their sons' literacy practices, within…