Classroom Library Inclusions - The Never-Ending Contemplation

I have posted before (here and here) that I have struggled with what to include in my classroom library. Last year with my 6th graders I ended up having parents sign a letter if they were comfortable with their children checking out YA books, explaining that they sometimes have more mature themes. Parents responded with a yes, and I thought my life was going to be so much easier, yet it was not. While I felt free to include more books on the shelves and loved seeing students reading them so enthusiastically, I still had more trouble trying to decide just how much they thought I was talking about when I said that they had mature themes.

Now as I have 6th and 7th graders, especially toward the end of the year 7th graders I am starting to reconsider again. I will have the same students, in addition to the incoming 6th grade class next year. I definitely think that in some cases my 7th graders are reading books at a completely different maturity level than my 6th graders. One book that I held aside was Sharon Draper's Tears of a Tiger. However, this year one of my students found the book at home (it was his brother's) and loved it. He wanted the rest in the series. I only had Darkness Before Dawn but decided to share it with him, feeling comfortable that if the first book came from home, it would be okay. He loaned the book to a classmate who had previously read Draper's We Beat The Streets and Double Dutch. Since then, that boy has already asked me a couple of times if I could get the second book in the trilogy.

After a lot of thought and reflection I decided that I will start a separate selection of books for my older readers. For now I am intending it to be only for my current 7th graders, and I will probably still only open it to them next year. Then as my current 6th graders seem to naturally bring in books from home that are the same/similar I will open it up to them. I'm still not sure if this is the best solution, but I am excited to be able to offer my student more books that they have been excited to read and requesting. I can't wait to go through my bin of books that I had set aside for "someday" to evaluate which ones will be appropriate now.