Nonfiction for kids just keeps getting better and better every single year. It’s such an exciting time for informational books.
And I’m deeply grateful for the efforts of librarians to enrich their nonfiction collections with new books in all different categories. There truly is a perfect nonfiction book for every child, and librarians are out there on the front line looking for innovative ways to help students find just the right book at just the right moment. Thank you!
Seeing librarians in action has inspired me to be on the lookout for even more ways to help unite students with nonfiction books they’ll love. As I’ve been touring school libraries and watching students utilize them, I noticed something worth thinking about.
Many libraries call the section with fictional picture books “E” Is for Everyone. As far as I can tell, no one is quite sure about the origin of this practice.
One possibility is that “E” initially stood for “Easy,” but librarians made a change to emphasize that readers of all ages can enjoy fictional picture books.
Or maybe the section was called “picture books” in the past, but then re-named because the nonfiction section also contains picture books.
Regardless of the origin, I’m hoping we can move away from this terminology because it sends an unintended message to students. It implies that the other two main sections—fictional novels and nonfiction–are NOT for everyone.
Of course, it’s true that the novel section isn’t appropriate for K-2 reading on their own. Due to the length and reading level of these books, they’re a better choice for older readers.
BUT the nonfiction section is an entirely different story. It truly IS for everyone because, in nearly all children’s libraries, nonfiction for all grade levels is arranged by topic and shelved together. A 32-page picture book about elephants is right next to a 112-page middle grade title about elephants.
“E” is for Everyone applies to the nonfiction section just as much as it applies to the fictional picture book section.
By using this label for fictional picture books only, we are giving nonfiction short shrift. We’re marginalizing it—and the kids who connect strongly with these books.
What’s the solution to this problem? Let’s think about it. Can we develop a better labelling system?
If you have suggestions, please add them to the comments below.
34 Responses
I love this! I am a first year librarian, and I have struggled with the logic behind the E label for picture books. I would like to change it, but unsure of what to call it. P for picture books?🤷🏻♀️
There are also nonfiction picture books, so perhaps create an E nf section or perhaps call the fictional picture books FPB. I'd love to hear ideas from other librarians. I bet someone has a perfect solution.
I have two sections of non-fiction in my library. The lower-leveled one I just got finished renaming “everyone non-fiction” so that “everyone” means it’s good for all readers while other books are for older readers.
That's a good idea. So you have E nonfiction and E fiction?
I am currently working through my Everyone Picture Books to include nonfiction titles that are appropriate for that section. If it’s a story that has nonfiction topics or connections I include the Dewey decimal number in parentheses on the spine label and then catalog them with a nonfiction picture book tag in my online system so I can locate them more easily. These books tend to get lost in the larger nonfiction section because they don’t necessarily lend themselves to research work and often don’t have real photographs to support the text but make great teaching tools and read-alouds as well as gateways to exploring nonfiction topics in more detail. I am all for cataloging books to help readers find them and so far this method is working in my elementary libraries.
Wow, I'd love to visit your library.
By genrefying the nonfiction it has given a new life to books. I also have two nonfiction sections, one that has the smaller step into reading ones. I have a plan to put those into the genrefying idea too. So when a student sees the animal sign, or the science sign, etc, they are excited to see those books too
So glad to hear students are finding books they love and checkouts have increased.
Also a first year school librarian, so still figuring things out, but in my library fiction picture books are PIC, pb bios are BIO and other nonfiction is classified by Dewey. E section is for early readers, fiction or non
This sounds like a good system. Are you happy with how it's working so far?
Great article! New librarian here…10 months in. At my school we have E fiction and E non fiction.
Example…Call #s are
E Dean for Pete the cat and E 398.2 dePaola. When I started there were not many notes on the set up. I was told this is the E easy/every one. I personally started to do away from the easy word and tell the kids the E stands for Everyone and just because it's a picture book does not make it easy! This section is meant for all grades 1-6 but along the wall are shelves and those have Fiction and NF for 4-6 grade.Those call #s are
F Rowling for Harry Potter or 398.2 DePalma fairy tale. Now this section bothers or confuses me and kids.. because of THE F in front of the author name. But there is nothing in front of dewey. It always takes a second to process where to go when looking for a call # even though it's not hard it just throws us off. But to come up with a change would be a massive project because my library hasn't been properly weeded in YEARS…so i am dealing with ALOT OF BOOKS.
It sounds like the system is equitable and weeding needs to be your main priority. Good luck! It sounds like a big job.
This is what I have in my library.
Fnatastico!
What about "S" for story books?
Narrative nonfiction tells a story, so if you are trying to specify just fiction, that would be confusing.
At one school I worked at, the easy reader nonfiction books were in a section with the picture books. It made it so much easier for students to find the nonfiction books at their reading level.
I have both fiction and non-fiction in my everyone section. Both are mixed in categories in bins coordinated with labels that match books. This allows for quick reads for anyone. I have Spanish language books in their categories as well and not divided by language.
This sounds terrific.
Sounds like it worked well.
I am an elementary librarian. I pulled all easier to read non fiction books and made a separate section called E non fiction for my younger readers. It is a very popular section that all students love!
As others have shared, I also have an Everyone Nonfiction (ENF) section, right next to my Everyone section.
When I was in a K-5 library I inherited a ‘stories’ section (aka picture books) and two completely separate -on opposite sides of the room- nonfiction sections (K-2 and 3-5) with Dewey call numbers on both. I ended up making a few changes.
‘Stories’ became ‘E/Everyone Fiction. Avoided confusion with narrative nonfiction, folktales etc.
K-2 nonfiction became E/Everyone nonfiction (and open to all grades). the collection got a transparent purple label on top of each original call number. Then was inter filed with the rest of nonfiction by Dewey. (Long term plan was to remove components of Dewey).
3-5 nonfiction became nonfiction (open to all grades) Kept original white labels with call numbers. This way all of the (topic) books were together so student discovery.
So 3-5 grade struggling readers knew to look for the ‘purple ones’ in a given topic and didn’t have to go to a completely separate section than their friends. And if one of the little ones was super interested in a topic, they then had additional choices.
It seemed to work well for us.
That's what I do as well! When I started at my current school, there weren't really any nonfiction books that were written for those who are just learning to read independently. I started buying all types of beginning reader nonfiction and putting it in a cart in the everybody section. Several years later, I have three big rolling carts of everybody nonfiction, and those books are incredibly popular with readers of all ages.
I'm one of the new old school librarians who came into the library and saw a section of picture books all labeled E and the first three letters of the authors last name. The people of that school community were calling them Easy books but neither the reading level nor content were necessarily appropriate for preK-1 students. I pulled out the books that were actually for developing readers (about 200 titles in fiction and nonfiction) and changed those MARC records and spine labels, then started saying that E meant Everybody. I did this at each school I worked at from 2000 – 2015 and then noticed that it had caught on and other libraries were doing it too. It isn't the best solution and I wouldn't have done it if resources had been unlimited, but it's better than what we had before.
I, too, came into a library (actually multiple libraries) with E, and quickly changed it to P. Many of the sections in a school library have books with pictures, and I think teaching them the terminology is helpful. Picture books, early readers, chapter books, etc. what can you expect when looking at this type of book?
In non-fiction I used a simplified Dewey system and put popular topics in buckets to make it more accessible. Circulation in all areas of fiction and nonfiction was pretty steady.
We have an "E" for everybody, "EC" for Everybody Chapter Books, which are fiction, but first and second grade reading level, and "E NF" for Everybody Non Fiction books.
My fantastic predecessor labeled this section “Quick Reads”
I love this solution!
I am a third year HS Librarian just now incorporating picture books and “children’s” literature into my library. It is all (currently) Fiction and I have genrefied it as “FIC E” based on what I had assessed other librarians had done. My primary thinking is all the uses these books can have in the secondary classroom. I also look forward to checkouts from staff, teachers and my students.
Please consider adding some nonfiction picture books to your collection. Many readers prefer nonficiton.
Great idea.
Great!
I like that a lot.