Since last week, I have been turning over a conversation I had with a student last week during summer school. She had dropped in with a pass from her class to borrow a few books.

I didn’t recognize her, but that’s not uncommon in a school of 2,600 students and a new pool of students who are attending the summer school program from one of our alternative school as well. Either way, I introduced her to the temporary library that we’ve set up in a science classroom to be closer to the summer school classrooms while avoiding the construction around the new library. I asked her if she was looking for something in particular and quickly shared that she wanted manga to which I pointed her to several book carts spilling over with it and told her that if she wanted specific recommendations I could help, otherwise, she was free to browse and could check out when she was ready.

It’s what happened after she checked out the three books that gave me pause.

I handed the three back to her telling her that during the summer, students can keep the books until the start of the school year or bring them back during summer hours to get more. She asked me to hold on to them. I looked puzzled since she had come in to borrow them and didn’t spend any time during available periods in the library to read while she was in the building. And her response was that she would pick them up at the end of the period because she didn’t want to walk back to class with books in her hand because “people don’t know I read”. She further explained that it would be embarrassing to go back to class with them.

Comments like these are different than my interactions with undiscovered readers who are coming in with classes for upcoming projects who tell me they don’t read or don’t want to read. This was a very specific statement that she wanted to hide her reading identity and because I’ve never had this type of conversation before, I didn’t have a ready-made response. But I did respond.

I told her I could absolutely hold on to the books until after class, but did add that she could also be her awesome self and walk back to class with them because she might discover others who have read and like the same manga series and have something to talk about. She asked that I hold on to them. I told her I’d see her after the period was over.

She returned when the bell rang, however my one piece de resistance was that I inserted this Post-it into one of the books that I hope might give her just a moment to think about being proud of a reading identity because she is a reader.

It’s not particularly earth-shattering in its insight, plus I wanted it to be a positive message celebrating this identity and encouraging her to share it with others. Being proud of herself for having a world of entertainment and learning between the pages of books and finding her way to the library.

Now I’m thinking about the upcoming school year and all those readers who keep invisible. I don’t want to “out” their reading if they wish to keep it quiet, however there might be others who just need a bit of encouragement to join the many who read. How can I reach them?