Nonfiction paperbacks about music, TV, movies, and sports respond to the very culture kids are creating. With more demands on their time, teens will need a real solid reason to come to libraries. Finding books that speak to subjects they are passionate about is a real draw. What is pulling more teens into school and public libraries is the Internet. There is in the profession a lot of underground frustration concerning how to move these new customers from computers to the collection.
Nonfiction is the answer to that.
A kid who visits the WWF Web site WILL check out the Rock's book or one of Daniel Cohen's paperbacks about wrestling. Kids are already in the tent, the computers are what got them there, but nonfiction books about the very topics they are looking up can keep them there. Of course, the next challenge is to put the books where kids can find them. In large libraries, teen areas must have nonfiction. School libraries should consider separate areas to highlight these titles from among the stacks and stacks of term-paper fodder.