Blind Date with a Book

For students who might not have a book boyfriend or book babe in his/her life, there's always the chance of meeting a potential book crush on a book blind date. My fabbo new intern, Janet Allen, approached me with this idea, and I said, "Start your matchmaking!" The idea is to pull books, wrap them up, and then give students the opportunity to choose a book to take on a date (y'know, check-out) and see if they're compatible. Who knows, he/she might even fall in love with the book! We ask they at least give the book a few chapters before kicking it to the curb, and who knows - it might be love and the student will want to go out with other books by that author or in that genre. The idea is to step outside your book dating comfort zone and try something new!

Every student who goes on a book blind date can report back with a brief review letting us know if he/she'd give it a rose or send it packing home. Regardless of the outcome, there's the consolation prize of some candy for taking a chance on book love.

We wrapped books that girls might like in pink, and books for guys in red to help guide their choices. Like people, books come in all sizes - some went for skinny, some chunky, some short and some tall. We did discover that it might be best to choose books that are high interest and entertaining but maaaaaybe haven't been on a date in awhile. Some of our kids who are BIG readers opened 2-3 books before they found one they hadn't read. I teased a couple of the girls that that's what they get for being such book sluts! We decided that would be an awesome name for a girls' book club at school...except our administration probably wouldn't find it as amusing as we do. ;-) Also, don't forget to throw some cool nonfiction books in there - nonfiction books need love too!!

Taylor and Jennifer meeting their book blind dates...

...and pretty pleased with the results. Taylor normally

sticks with Orca Soundings, but she's giving her date,

Girls Against Girls, a chance and has even reported

back on some of the facts about girl drama

she's learned from the book. Jennifer is a huge vampire fan,

but she's willing to give Brutal and it's take on bullying a chance.

Book Boyfriends and Babes...

February is one of my favorite months being a school librarian, because it's all about the LOVE. What better way to get teens pumped for Valentine's Day and all things romance than to get them to share their book crushes? When I was sixteen, I read S.E. Hinton's The Outsiders for the first time and fell hard for bad boy Dallas Winston (didn't hurt that I had Matt Dillon as a visual!). He may have been rude, crude and rough around the edges, but his loyalty to Johnny and Ponyboy ("Let's do it for Johnny!") and vulnerability in the presence of Cherry Valance made me want to rip him from the pages and save him from the Socs and his own self-destructive ways with my love. Why did Dallas Winston have to be a fictional character?!! And why did S.E. Hinton have to go and kill him?!!!!!!

Dallas wasn't the first or last book boyfriend I'd lose to death. My most recent book boyfriend would have to be The Fault in Our Stars' Augustus Waters. C'mon, a boy who'd battled and overcome cancer, lost a leg to that cancer, but remained full of humor and hope to the point he'd fly thousands of miles overseas to make a dream come true for his terminal girlfriend Hazel? *sigh* *sniff* It's no wonder that Hazel loved you as she did, and when you died I sobbed for your family, Hazel and my heartbroken inner-teen self! 

So who are today's teen book boyfriends and book babes? For February, my students are sharing that with me and our school with this display...

I found an online candy hearts maker that allowed me to add the names of some of the more popular book crushes in recent series - Lola, Cricket, Bella, Jacob, Edward, Patch, Alex, Carlos, Luis (Fuentes brothers! *fans self*), Fang, Clary, Jace, Gale, Katniss, Peeta, Tris, Ron, Hermione, Harry, Augustus, Hazel, and Starfire (manga babe!). I have colorful cut-outs hearts that the students complete with info on their book boyfriend/babe, the name of the book, and why that character is so crushable. Snap a pic of the student, and we're good to go and swoon!

So far, the Simone Elkeles' Fuentes brothers seem to be garnering the most love from the girls, while Katniss is rocking the guys' world. I only started the display this past week and hope to add many more hearts down the hallway as we get into February!

Book Christmas Tree

Thanks to Pinterest, the Book Christmas Tree has popped up in libraries all over - including mine. Using books with green, red or yellow spines, two students and I created this masterpiece in about an hour this morning. Didn't take long for word to spread through the school about the awesome Book Christmas tree in the library - since many of my students don't 'do' Pinterest ("No, but my mom likes it!" is the most frequent answer I hear when I ask students if they Pinterest), this is literally a novel idea to them, so they're in awe of it!

For added awesomeness, I'm sponsoring a Book Counting Christmas Tree Contest - the student who correctly or most closely guesses the number of books that make up the book tree wins a gift card to Target or GameStop. And, no, even I don't know the number yet - guess I'll find out when I take it down. ;-)

Book Trailers + QR Codes + Carly Rae Jepsen = "Read Me Maybe" Book Display

2,364,764,385,931 listens later, I'm still not sick of Carly Rae Jepsen's "Call Me Maybe" - it has been my summer jam - so when I saw Comsewogue Public Library's take-off on the song used for a book display featuring QR codes for book trailers (via Pinterest), I totes nicked the idea to make my own display.

This should make for a fun back-to-school activity for students who can practice reading QR codes with our iPads - better still, they might be inspired to check out some of these titles after watching the book trailers. Since cell phones aren't allowed during school hours, I conveniently placed the display in the hall outside the library - hey, what I don't see, I can't stop.

If you've been living under a rock and don't know what song I'm referring to, for your listening pleasure I give you...