Caroline Hill-Trevor is Head of Book Selection and Purchasing at BookTrust
When young people start secondary school they will probably have formed their own opinions about reading, and what they like reading – if they like reading at all.
They will be living in a very noisy world of increased academic pressure alongside personal responsibility, and reading has to compete with phones and other electronic devices, with entertainment delivered on demand by platforms such as TikTok and YouTube.
If a young person doesn’t start secondary school as a reader, whether because they never have been or have lapsed as they’ve progressed through primary school, there is a short window of opportunity to get them going again – and this is where Bookbuzz comes in.
What secondary school students are looking for
At this age, students are developing stronger opinions, wider interests, and a growing sense of identity; they may have similar interests to their friends but with different levels of reading ability and they need age-appropriate, not baby-ish, books.
The books offered need to feel relevant to them and have to be chosen with care to interest them whilst respecting their maturity and self-awareness.
This requires a different, more nuanced approach from choosing books for younger children. These young people still need excitement, escapism, and fun, but they also want books that reflect the complexity of their lives and their changing tastes and that give them ownership over what they choose to read.
That is why book selection for this age group needs to balance titles which we know will have broad appeal alongside recognising that no single title will speak to every reader.
It may be the title that is selected by the fewest students that will show those students what books offer and that they might be a reader after all.
The importance of ownership
One of the biggest differences in selecting books for this age group is the importance of independent choice.
While younger children often rely on teachers or parents to help them with their reading choices, 11–13 year olds are more likely to want to choose themselves without much direction, or they may have decided they don’t want to choose a book at all.
They want to feel that the book they pick says something about who they are and what interests them.
To enable this, the Bookbuzz selection offers wide variety, with no assumptions or pigeon-holing of the expected reader.
The selection makes room for different tastes, experiences and reading identities, helping students take ownership of their reading, possibly for the first time ever.
Offering a variety of books
As children move into early secondary school, reading preferences may change quickly.
A selection for 11–13 year olds needs to cover a variety of genres, including thriller, horror, mystery, adventure, humour, sci-fi, fantasy, poetry or verse novels, real life stories and non-fiction, because readers at this age are often looking for books that feel highly specific to their interests.
Older readers benefit as much as younger children from real choice across different formats, some of which they may not have come across before.
Offering books in different formats – such as graphic novels, illustrated books and verse novels – acknowledges that engagement can come in different ways and that format can be as much of a way in as genre.
Accessibility that respects maturity
Book selection for younger children focuses on helping them build confidence to read independently.
For 11–13 year olds, the challenge is different: the selection must still support a wide range of reading abilities, challenging the most able readers without making the least confident readers feel left behind. And there needs to be something for those in the middle too, all while ensuring the content is age-appropriate and interesting.
The goal is not just to make books accessible but also to show that books are a form of entertainment to rival devices, films, and games, and which are relevant for readers who may vary widely in confidence.
Coming back to finding the book that will show a student that they are a reader, the best selections enable every student to find a book that is both achievable and worth reading.
The importance of authentic representation
By the time they reach secondary school, readers are noticing who appears in stories and whether characters are recognisable to them, and therefore believable.
Older readers are often more alert to tokenism, stereotyping and oversimplification, and the books they get to choose from should respect the complexity of real lives.
The Bookbuzz selection includes books by a diverse range of writers with stories and about subjects that reflect varied experiences and relatable backgrounds portrayed authentically.
Selecting well for this age group means finding books that are not only exciting and inclusive, but also thoughtful enough to help young people see both themselves and others more clearly through reading.
Showing students that reading is for them
Bookbuzz Secondary aims to turn reluctant readers into enthusiastic readers, challenge the most able readers, and interest the non-readers.
Above all, we want to show every young person that reading is for them and set them up to read for pleasure through secondary school and beyond.
