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Top 10 Reasons to Participate in March Book Madness by Tony Keefer
Happy Valentine’s Day Nerdy Nation! When I was awarded the Valentine’s Day post here at Nerdy, I instantly began building a list of my all time favorite kissy books. When I was awarded the Valentine’s Day post here at Nerdy I started thinking about love and books, books and love. And since nothing says love for books like arguing over good books, I, along with some of my friends, am inviting you to participate in March Book Madness. What is March Book Madness? It is kind of like the massive college basketball tournament that happens every year. Instead of Kentucky facing Duke in a game you may get The One and Only Ivan battling Diary of a Wimpy Kid, or Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus matching up against I Want My Hat Back, or The Fault in Our Stars trying to crush Divergent.
Over the past few years my class has thoroughly enjoyed every triumphant and heart-breaking moment of seeing our favorite books slotted into a tournament bracket. Both the thrill of a book “winning a game” and moving to the next round and the agony of seeing a favorite story leave the tournament. Last year our class added to our own madness by sharing with other classrooms. We saw which books other classrooms loved and we shared the results of our votes.
During a #titletalk a few months ago, one little tweet about the idea of March Book Madness lead to small group of Nerdy Book Clubbers (Franki Sibberson, Scott Jones, Erin Varley, Kristin Ziemke, Katharine Hale, Katie Muhtaris, Katherine Sokolowski and myself) wondered “What if we could create a web-based March Book Madness that would connect classrooms from all around the country?”
The wondering led to creating a website to host a global March Book Madness. If you clicked the link in the last sentence, browsed the new site, have already registered for the map and you cannot wait to share this idea with the students you work with on Monday, then feel free to skip to the bottom of this post, write a comment and press one of those little buttons that shares this post via Twitter or Facebook.
If you need more incentive to join our book tournament, read on.
The Top 10 Reasons you should click on the link above and join our March Book Madness party.
1) March Book Madness creates a tremendous amount of buzz in classrooms about books. I know that many Nerdy Book Club classrooms generate a palpable amount of book buzz already. But a tournament setting creates a different kind of buzz. Kids get very, very excited about seeing which book moves on to the second round.
2) March Book Madness introduces new books to your readers. Over the last few years many of the books that “win” and move to the next round become interesting to readers who haven’t spent time with them yet. Last year all 50 of my students spent time with Mr. Tiger Goes Wild because it started gaining momentum as it started winning “games.”
3) March Book Madness is for all school-age readers. We have a picture book bracket, a middle grade novel bracket and a young adult novel bracket. You, or your students, could choose which bracket you want to join or maybe even join more than one.
4) March Book Madness will connect you with other Nerdy Book Club Classes. Through the website and the twitter hashtag #2015MBM you can share your love of books with other classrooms. I can imagine lots of tweets sharing the greatness of certain titles along with the disbelief of a major upset.
5) March Book Madness can be as big or little of a deal as you want. You could rally your whole school around this event or you could just make it something you share with you students to do at home. Either way, you are getting your readers to think about books and join a bigger community of book lovers.
6) March Book Madness gets kids to talk about books beyond the classroom walls. Over the last few years the amount of discussion about books at lunch, recess and in the halls has grown considerably when the event happens. It is fascinating to see the kids continue the debate after the voting has ended for each match-up.
7) March Book Madness is a way for kids who are reluctant to share their love of reading to go public with that love. We all have had those students who, for whatever reason, hesitate to profess their love for a book or reading in general. There is something about the competitive aspect of March Book Madness that entices these readers to show their excitement or frustration.
8) March Book Madness is a chance for your class to connect with authors. When books start moving through the bracket I am pretty sure there will be plenty of Nerdy Book Club authors adding to the hashtag thread. When this happens, take the chance to congratulate them or connect with them.
9) March Book Madness is an opportunity for you to share your book nerdiness even more. I have never held back when my favorite books have won or lost. It still haunts me that Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone was eliminated in the first round of my class’s original tournament a few years ago. March Book Madness has been one more chance for my students to see that I am passionate about the books I love.
10) March Book Madness is exceptionally fun. During this drudgeriffic time of standardized testing, counting the days until spring break and stressing about why we are so far behind, March Book Madness is an easy way to bring a little bit of fun into our daily lives with our students.
Are you going to join in the fun? The Road to Bookville starts soon.
Tony Keefer (@tonykeefer) lives, reads and teaches in Dublin, Ohio. You can also find him at http://tonykeefer.blogspot.com and http://tonykeefer.tumblr.com
Nerdy Book Club 
LOVE this idea!
Of course I LOVE this idea. I am afraid that I will not be able to have access to all of the books here, but maybe I will. Any recommendations about whether my third graders should be a part of the Picture Book or Middle Grade version? We did a Mock Caldecott and loved it, so have a lot of heart invested in those books, so maybe we will stick with that. Happy to hear advice from others.
I think either one might be fun. Since your class probably knows many of the picture books, that might be the better choice. It would be great to see your class involved, it would help make the event truly “global.”
I love this idea. What if a bookstore wanted to participate?
I think that would be awesome. Not sure how I would approach running it in an environment like a bookstore, but it definitely would be welcomed!
This makes me want to be back in the classroom. This is a wonderful idea!
Fun! Do you SLJ’s Battle of the Kids’ Books, now in its seventh year? (http://blogs.slj.com/battleofthebooks/) We select 16 MG and YA books from the previous year and have the brackets judged by awesome judges. Their essays are always fabulous. We’ve always wanted some way for kids to be involved (we have kid commentators and some librarians have done mock Bobs), but needed someone to take that part on. (My dream was something like the UK Carnegie shadowing site: http://www.carnegiegreenaway.org.uk/shadowingsite/) Not sure if it fits for you, but if you can see a way to link to us that would be fun. We can certainly feature you as well. (We do weekly Peanut Gallery posts with round ups of tweets, blog posts, etc about the Bob.) Let me know if you’d like to do anything between the two. Thanks!
When I started doing my own classroom’s March Book Madness a few years back it was partially inspired by SLJ’s BOB. I am not sure how the crossover between the two would work, but I am intrigued by the possibility. I just followed you on twitter. Maybe DM me sometime this weekend so we can email ideas. Thanks for thinking of the connection!
So is this a challenge where the kids read at home or does the reading take place at school? Do you provide the copies of the books? I guess I’m asking for logistics 🙂 It sounds super duper fun, Tony! You’re awesome.
Ryan, on Wednesday when the pre-seeding forms are announced there will also be tips on how to organize the voting in classrooms. There are lots of possible ways we can imagine this going. The big idea is to get people talking about books and connecting classrooms that love books.
I would love to participate. Is it best to just follow the updates on the website provided?
We are so in!! I’m contacting my 5th grade colleagues to get their Twitter handles and will sign up our 3 fifth grade classes in the middle grade novel category. This comes just as our Jan-Feb Bookfest is ending and will be the perfect next move to sustain book excitement. I can hardly wait-thank you for this great event!
Awesome!
Our 5th graders love it! We have ours up already in order to give them time to read as many of the first round books as possible!
I think I will start small and use this idea in my second grade classroom before trying it school-wide! My students are going to love it!
We are going to try this for the first time in our library this year. I am excited to see it in action.
This is perfect! Just finished Mock Newbery so this will be a great follow-up as we move into Readig Week in April at my school. I probably won’t have access to many of the books but we’ll see how that plays out. Maybe book trailers, Goodreads reviews, Kindle versions? Don’t know yet but I’m psyched to get started.
Yeah! Glad you are joining us!
I am so excited. This is just the kind of project my class of competitive 2nd grade students will LOVE-read, debate (or argue), vote, and name a winner! As the teacher, it will push me to get started with a classroom Twitter account. I will be following closely and hope to jump right in.
Ooooh! So exciting! I can’t wait for this to start. I’m going to share with my buddies!
Yes! Share this with as many people as possible!
Great idea. My browser isn’t supported, though.
We just finished setting our middle school March Madness brackets. Last year we did favorite book series (Harry Potter beat Hunger Games by a few votes,) and this year we’re doing best movie adaptation of a MS/YA book. Since I now have a part-time library clerk to help with this, we’re going to jump in and participate in the YA March Madness here as well! (Nothing like welcoming new staff by setting up two brackets, then leaving on vacation for the final week of voting, right?)
I’m a writer and would love to follow this, but my browser isn’t support. I will promote it though. I think this is an awesome idea.
This sounds interesting. Did I miss the past where the books are listed? And are they supposed to be read before the tournament starts or during the tournament? We will be on winter break all this week, not back in school until the 23rd. Well this be a problem?
You haven’t missed much yet. Joining a little late is not a problem at all.
i am so doing this! What a fun way at to share and talk about books. It’ll also be a great talking point when students lead their conferences at the end of March/early April.
Sounds like so much fun! I saw on there they chose to do Wednesday-Tuesday voting for schools that have a week off for spring break, however my school has two weeks off for spring break. Would it stil be possible for us to join?
Love this idea! Looking forward to my 2nd grade class participating, and hoping it will also push me to actually use my Twitter account.
I would love my second grade class to join the madness!
I love this idea!! I have signed up but would love to know how to get a list of the books 🙂
awesome idea!!
Woot! Always love a reason to be extra nerdy and get kids excited about reading! We’ll be joining from Beirut, Lebanon.
I love this idea! Do you have a link to help me get one started in my school?
If you want to join up, the link http://marchbookmadness.weebly.com
I would love to join! I hope it’s not too late.
I am trying to figure out how to do this school wide (I am the librarian). There is no way I can read all these books to all the classes (even just K-2) in one week. I only have one copy of each book so I don’t think each class could do it. I need help and ideas. Maybe I should just ask 3-4 teachers to participate. What do you think? Thanks.
Came across this and am so excited, I’d like to get started and bring this to my fourth graders! Hope it’s not too late to get started! Thank you for all your tips and links. I am taking it all in and trying to make a plan of attack. Thanks!
I love this and want to do it at my middle school! One question: do kids have to read all of the competing books to vote? That could be a hurdle if students need to do that in the next week. I was thinking of having students initially vote on their favorite books and using top 18 of those to create the bracket. Thanks!
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