Deb Aronson

Nancy Pearl: Über Librarian

First appeared in NCTE Council Chronicle in March 2010 under Profiles

The words “librarian” and “celebrity” are not often used in the same sentence, but in the case of Nancy Pearl, it happens often. Not only has Pearl, a librarian by training, written three books, she is a regular guest on National Public Radio and hosts a Seattle television show. To top it all off, she was the inspiration for a librarian action figure and is quoted on one of the Starbucks coffee cups.*

“That’s certainly something you don’t expect that when you are 10 and think ‘I want to be a librarian,’” she says, chuckling.

Ever since she learned to read at the age of three or four, Pearl has loved books. She discovered libraries as an oasis in a “not particularly happy home environment.” From the time she was 10, Pearl knew she would be a librarian, “just like Miss Whitehead,” the children’s librarian her Detroit neighborhood. And for most of her career that is just what Pearl has been, first in Detroit, then Tulsa and most recently Seattle.

In 2002 Pearl’s life hit warp drive when a Seattle book publisher approached her about writing a book, titled Book Lust, about good books arranged by 300 somewhat random categories — everything from “Aging” or “Art Appreciation” to “Zen Buddhism” and “Zero” (books about nothing) with entries of 250 words each.

“The thing I do best, my one talent, is that I can talk about books,” says Pearl. “I remember authors and frequently come up with plot details. “

The librarian action figure came out almost simultaneously, “but just by chance,” as Book Lust. “They played off each other,” says Pearl. “There was controversy over the librarian action figure. Did the shushing action reinforce negative stereotypes? About 20 librarians decided they didn’t like it, because they had no sense of humor — it’s meant to be ironic! So every time they talked to the press another 2,000 librarian action figures would sell.”

And they’d identify Pearl as the author of Book Lust, which was great for book sales. As for the success of the book, Pearl says, “They ended up feeling they could trust me because I wasn’t a snob about reading.”

Today, in addition to having written three books in the Book Lust collection (Book Lust, More Book Lust and Book Crush), with a fourth (Book Lust To Go) due out next year, Pearl also does hour-long call-in radio shows both for the Seattle NPR station and with Wisconsin Public Radio, a television show (Seattlechannel.org) in which she interviews authors — and sometimes readers — and a blog at nancypearlbooks.wordpress.com where she posts a new review weekly.

But before she was an author, a radio host or the inspiration for an action figure, Pearl was first, and at heart still is, a librarian. In 1998 she developed the program, “If All Seattle Read the Same Book.” The goal of the program was to build new audiences for literature. Pearl wanted to center the program on book clubs.

“I believe very strongly in book groups as a way to transcend our superficial differences,” says Pearl. “Talking about hard issues in a book is much easier than talking about them on a personal level without a book.”

This “one city one book” idea has since been adopted by communities and schools across the nation and is, says Pearl, the achievement she is most proud of.

Hand in hand with Pearl’s efforts to share her passion for reading is the mystery Pearl has spent her life pondering: why people like the books they like.

“This is something librarians have been trying for decades to understand,” she says. “What is it in a particular book that has or has not drawn you in?”

Pearl pictures books as having four doors by which to enter: story, characters (whether hobbit, dragon or human), setting (in time or location) and language. Every book has all four of those doorways. What’s different between books is the size of the doorways.

Books by Dan Brown, for example, are all about story, and that is the largest door, says Pearl. People who read for language may not enjoy Brown as much as someone for whom story is key. Setting is another door, but although every book has a setting, setting is not always the biggest door. For example, although Ann Tyler’s books are all set in Baltimore, they could really be set anywhere. Her books are more about character. In Laura Lippman’s books, on the other hand, Pearl says Baltimore is integral part of her books, especially the mystery series.

“People always thinks a book they love has all four equal doorways but they really don’t,” she says.

The beauty of the four doors analogy, says Pearl, is it is not judgmental; there is not a hierarchy or an implication that one door is better than another. They just represent “descriptive ways to meet people where they are. The way people talk about books is a clue to what door is most important to them,” she adds.

Pearl suggests that English teachers could think of these doors as they choose books to assign their students. She argues that, “assigning stories in school is wasted unless the door size matches the kids. One of the problems with high school assignments is that we give kids books at the wrong time of their lives.”

“The biggest doorway for kids has to be story,” she adds.

Pearl is very sympathetic to English teachers and suggests that they and librarians “have a lot to say to one another.” They struggle with somewhat similar issues, such as figuring out ways to help students love to read and understand what they read. Pearl also would argue that parents and teachers could help their readers pace themselves, picking books that match the reader’s own emotional maturity level.

“One of the saddest things is you’re getting seven and eight year olds reading all of the Harry Potter books. The early Harry Potter books were written for seven and eight year olds, they were all action all the time. But as the books progress, those kids that were seven when the first one came out were growing up, so by the time the seventh Harry Potter came out those kids were able to handle the story, which is much more interior and much less obvious to story readers.”

Although she agrees she’d probably start a riot if she really suggested this, she would like to see parents and teachers making kids wait to read certain books until they are at a proper age. It’s not, definitely not book banning, she says, more like book pacing. Since 2004, when Pearl left the Seattle public library, she has been leading workshops, teaching as an adjunct professor at the University of Washington Information School, and talking about the “doorways theory.”

Despite the age of the Internet and Google, where information is so much easier to access, Pearl continues to believe in the importance of libraries and librarians.

“You can sit at home and find out almost anything so what is the library to do? To me it is what the library has always done. It’s been a haven for readers and a place you can come to find people who love reading as much as you do. It’s a place to find your next good book with the help of a trained librarian and it’s a place where programs take place: book discussions, poetry reading, open mikes.”

*Oh, and that Starbucks quote, cup #169? “Life’s too short to read a book you don’t love. At age 50 or younger, give a book 50 pages to see if you like it. Over 50, subtract your age from 100 and that’s the number of pages to read before you bail on a book you’re not enjoying. And when you turn 100, you get to judge a book by its cover!”