Promoting books is one of the most fun parts of my job because I read so many that I know my students will love. Booktalks and handselling books as I walk around with students are wonderful methods, but I admit to being a little sneaky or passive aggressive in my mission. Aggressive with passion and determination, not hostility of course.
Here are a few methods that I have seen success with and would like to share so that others can give them a try.
Put up a sign in your room or by your door that shows students what you are currently reading. Take it a step further and put them at every classroom and office door including administration and staff. Use locker tags for students to share their current reads.
Create a wall of book covers. Add a picture of the book covers as you complete a book. Offer students a space to do the same. Admire all the titles you complete that year.
Find a lamp to create a “spotlight” that highlights a book or group of books that relates to current events, holidays or author birthdays.
Load a digital frame with book covers or book trailers if it plays video. There are even frames that have motion sensors so they play when the students walk by. Put in pictures of students holding a favorite or recommended book. Students love to see themselves.
Put signs about books in unexpected places. I put signs with book covers and QR codes that went to author sites on the back of the bathroom stall doors. I know they sneak in there to use their phones anyway. Let’s put them to good use.
Create a bulletin board of the Top Ten books circulated in your library or classroom. Update often.
Stock up on little gold stars and allow students to put stars on the inside cover of their favorite books.
Try creating booktalks with a Smartpen and let your students do the same. Put their picture on the bookmark so they get credit for the recommendation. Check out the Daring Librarian blog for all the details and instructions.
If you have a silent sustained reading time make sure you “ooh”, “aah”, and gasp as you read. They’ll be sure to find out what caused such a reaction from their teacher.
What passive aggressive methods work for you? I would love to hear your ideas.
Keep reading!
Tamara Cox
Tamara Cox, the Eliterate Librarian, is a self-proclaimed “wannabe edtech geek” and middle school librarian in South Carolina. She loves to connect students with the perfect book and help teachers that are nervous about taking the tech plunge. When she doesn’t have her nose in a book you can find her online at www.e-literatelibrarian.blogspot.com.
Thank you for sharing your ideas! My next vistaprint order will include “Mrs. Messerly is currently reading” postcards. I had some facebook-style LIKE stickers made for kids to put inside books they love. I also have small stickers that say “This book was first read by ____” and the students get a kick of being the FIRST to read a new book.
Totally stealing those sticker ideas!
Love these ideas!
My favorite thing to do is to leave books lying around… they always get snagged. That or get one kid to want to read it and then start a “wait list”…. demand breeds more demand.
Love all of these ideas. I also tell kids when I absolutely couldn’t finish a book – it was too scary, too sad, etc. Doesn’t happen often but they always want to read it to prove me wrong.
They do love a challenge:)
Can’t wait to get to school and try these ideas. I want to do them all NOW!
I’ve always wanted to put a TV up in the corner of the library like they do in the video store and play book trailers and student book reviews on a constant loop. I’ve been so stuck on not being able to make that happen that I’ve never considered other alternatives. The picture frame idea is great. Thanks.
Great ideas! This post reminded me that I have a digital picture frame I’m not using these days- what an excellent way to put it to use!
My sneaky tip: I put titles that I am sure students will love but haven’t seen much attention on my cart of “recently returned and waiting to be reshelved books”, which students always flock to to see what their peers have been enjoying.
Like this idea and it might save some shelving
I love your ideas, especially the digital frame one. And Flash Burnout shown there, such a great book.
I was excited about the ingenious suggestions in the post, and then read on to find even more in the comments. NBC rocks! (Has anyone heard when cards are going to be available? I’m too old to resort to tattoos!
One of mine was Book It (library club member came up with that). We’d book it out to the shelves, read the backs of books or find favorite previous reads then book it over to a display area I created for them. By the time kids were done in the shelves they were book talking to each other and half the books didn’t make it to the display. It was great because my book club members who didn’t like to read (yup, lol) ended up taking home books and reading them and browsing shelves to find books on their own and share why the book interested them. I did this with between 8 and 14 kids depending on attendance, almost half boys. Doing this came about quite by accident. It really was intended to have a kid created book display-until I saw them taking each others books!
Thanks for sharing your tips!
Nice! Kids listen to their peers over us:)
So I think I could adapt this idea when my 5th grade class visits the library. With the librarian’s permission…while they are browsing books for themselves they can put a book on top of the bookcase for display. Love it!
We had a rolling cart with the sign, best reads lately for books that weren’t in anyone’s hands at the time. I love all your ideas, especially the digital picture frame and the sneaky bathroom stall one. Oh, and the currently reading on the lockers-just great. What clever ideas to get those books out there!
I am continually amazed by the passion and creativity of teachers and librarians! What great ideas. I sure wish you’d been MY librarian growing up.
These are so smart! I am going to try them out. You are so incredibly creative.
I divide the class into two teams. Each team has a poster, and as studentsfinish a book, they write their name, the title, and the number of pages in the book. There is a calculater next to the poster, and they add their pages to the last person’s on their team, so the last number is the team’s most recent total. At the end of each quarter, the winning team (and top reader from the other team) get prizes (papa gino’s has gift certificates for free pizza and I have prizes from Oriental Trading). I am sneaky, and next to that poster are peer recs, so as they finish a book, they can see postcards of books their peers love.
Love love LOVE this post! I, too, have a sign outside my door — I love the idea of locker signs for the students as well. And, as Sylvie said, I have a digital picture frame that I am not using: what a perfect use!
Loving these ideas shared in comments. I also put the Goodreads widget on the library catalog home page. Forgot to include that:)
I was so excited about the ideas you mentioned, I forgot to highlight Goodreads, too. It seems whenever I 4- or 5-star a book, there are a handful of students who add it to their “to read” shelves within a day. I often see the books in their hands by the following week.
Just remembered another one… Put pics of book covers in picture frame mousepads. Amazon sells them for $1.50
There are so many clever ideas packed into this post! I have only used a few of them, and so many are easy and doable. Thank you!
Thank you for these great ideas. I resort to trickery every day as I push my 9th graders to not just hold a book but read it. One thing I am working on is getting my kids to add a page to their blogs, a Books I’ve Read page. Similar to a page in their notebooks that details what they’ve read, they will post reviews and trailers to their blog page. The competition between some kids to post more than others is about to become fierce. I love it!
Great post! Love the ideas being shared!
Love. This. Post.
Fantastic. I’m currently thinking through how I can better launch reading workshop next year. I’ll definitely use these ideas (and will ping this back in my post).
Cheers,
Janet | expateducator.com