treat science fiction as a genre that works best for certain cases, like reluctant readers or kids who like what they called"weird,""freaky" or"funky" books.
Of the 59 elementary teachers and librarians whom I surveyed, almost a quarter of them identified themselves as science fiction fans, and nearly all of them expressed that science fiction is just as valuable as any other genre. Nevertheless, most of them indicated that while they recommend science fiction books to individual readers, they do not choose science fiction for activities or group readings.
The teachers and librarians explained that they saw two related problems with science fiction for their youngest readers: low availability and complicated content.Several respondents said that there simply are not as many science fiction books available for elementary school students. To investigate further, Iin 10 randomly selected elementary school libraries from across the United States. Only 3% of the books in each library were science fiction.
When I spoke to a small publisher and several authors, they confirmed that science fiction for young readers is not considered a profitable genre, and so those books are rarely acquired. Due to the perception that many young readers do not like science fiction, it is not written, published and distributed as often.
With fewer books to choose from, the teachers and librarians said that they have difficulty finding options that are not too long and complicated for group readings. One explained:"I have to appeal to broad ability levels in chapter book read-aloud selections. These books typically have to be shorter, with more simple plots.