My purpose!

OK We've all been there as librarians or teachers or mothers. It's the reading milestones. I had a young teenager who has been coming to my library since he was a young child and somehow I just didn't notice how he was growing up. He is homeschooled and he is not quite a reluctant reader but not exactly the voracious reader that his older sisters are. They are the kind that will read ingredients if they don't have anything else to read. He is a bit more of a challenge as most boys are. Well, he's moved from the juvenile section to the YA section in natural progression but still can't find anything he wants. I offered to help him one day and he turned me down and wanted to browse. A few heavy sighs later, I asked him again. He said he just couldn't find anything, so I asked him how old he was. He said 14 or 15. I can't remember exactly, but I thought back to myself at his age and told him what the problem was. I said, "Dude, have you ever thought that maybe it's time to step across the library into a new section to look for books?" He gave me a confused look. I told him, "It's called adult fiction." He wouldn't be bought. I told him that all adult books (like his sisters like to read) don't have to be thick and complicated. He likes mysteries and Sherlock Holmes and whatnot so I showed him Agatha Christie and Dick Francis. Not too thick. Very involving. He still wasn't sure so I left him alone in the stacks to look with instructions not to show up at the desk until he found something. Well, he came back with an Agatha Christie and a very thick Sherlock Holmes book. I didn't say anything. I just checked them out and told him that I hoped he would enjoy them. Well, the books came back today via his sister. I asked her if he read them. She said yes. I perked up and asked if he had read the very thick Sherlock book too. She said yes. She told me that he was driving her nuts following her around telling her all the cool things going on in the books that she wouldn't believe. She said, "I told him, 'Why don't you go tell Ms. Selena?'" I broke out in a giant grin and looked at her and dabbed my eyes and said, "Our little boy has hit a milestone". She said "Is there any coffee left?" Another one of my patrons is stepping into the world of adult fiction and hopefully will turn into another lifetime patron. I may have a job for another generation after all.,