Dewey Classification Question

Greetings!
I had a good question from a reader recently and I thought it might be something that many of you would find helpful.

The question was regarding the Chicken Soup type of books. These are inspirational short stories or stories of encouragement. They are similar to a devotional type book. You likely have seen Chicken Soup for the Dog Lover’s Heart, Chicken Soup for the Golfer, Chicken Soup for the Teen and the list goes on and on. Other similar books include Taste Berries for Teens, Stories for a Teen’s Heart. If you look on the imprint page, you can find Dewey numbers from the publisher. (Get out your magnifying glass!)

My reader found that there were vastly different Dewey numbers for some of the books. Taste Berries for Teens - says 248.8'3; many of the Chicken Soup books say 158.1; and Stories for a Teen's Heart says 242.63. So where do we put these books? She would like to keep the books together so her kids can find them more easily.

I looked up each Dewey classification and found that the 158.1 section is for books about personal improvement or successful living. The 242 section is for devotional literature and the subheading of 242.6 is for prayers and meditations for specific classes of persons. 242.634 is for college students. I am guessing that the publisher left off the ‘4’ and designated 242.63 for teens. The 248 section is for Christian experience, practice, life. By adding the ‘8’ after the decimal it subdivides the category to Christian experience for specific persons and the ‘3’ means young people.

So if you want to keep these kinds of books together in the library, where should you put them? If you were going to choose one of the above suggestions, you might pick the one that seems to fit best, then give each of them the same Dewey number.

However, I have another option for you. They are basically a collection of stories, so why not put these books in the collected stories under the Dewey number of 808.8? This is what I suggested to my reader. That is where we have them in our library.

Do you have any Chicken Soup books or any books like this? Where do you put them in your library? I’m curious.

I have an announcement. I got some money from the Don Keele Award to add e-readers to our school. I just found out a few days ago and have been doing more research on what to add. I plan to add Kindles from Amazon. So which Kindle should I get? What are the pros and cons of each? I have been researching them to decide and will be talking with our faculty to get their input.

As we go further along, I will update you on my progress on the Kindle project.

I hope you have a great week.
Audrey