A Display to Make You Smile…
Posted by: Cindy Dobrez and Lynn Rutan
Cindy: Sometimes the best bulletin boards are the simple ones. It’s easy to make displays busy and cluttered and that can overwhelm your patrons who are quickly passing them. Here’s one that has been popular with our middle school students and staff. Yellow paper with a hand drawn smiley face brightens up the room, makes people smile, and is an easy-to-fill display. You could display humorous titles, books with “smile” or “smiling” in the title, or go for my easier approach: books with bright yellow covers spanning many genres! If you are building a display for teens, here are some sunny yellow covers to consider:
Car Trouble by Jeanne DuPrau
Countdown by Deborah Wiles
Dog Days (Diary of a Wimpy Kid) by Jeff Kinney
The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate by Jacqueline Kelly
Get Well Soon by Julie Halpern
Honey Bees: Letters from the Hive by Stephen Buchmann
The Key to the Golden Firebird by Maureen Johnson
Minerva Clark Gets a Clue by Karen Karbo
Miracle Wimp by Erik Kraft
The Not-So-Great Depression by Amy Goldman Koss
Schooled by Gordon Korman
Smile by Raina Telgemeier
The Steps by Rachel Cohn
The Year of Secret Assignments by Jacquelyn Moriarty
Yellow Flag by Robert Lipsyte
Lynn: I’m always revealing my clay-laden feet on this blog but something else I’m not very good at is creating bulletin boards. When Cindy and I worked in the same library, I was an outstanding assistant. I’m really good at cutting out shapes and stapling where directed but don’t ask me to figure out how to transfer an idea to actual reality. Fortunately I don’t have to wrestle with those huge bulletin boards anymore but I’m here to tell you that Cindy is right – simple is often amazingly effective. This sunny bright and EASY bulletin board makes everybody smile.
September 22nd, 2010 at 7:10 am
I love it! It’s so yellow and cheery!
September 22nd, 2010 at 7:20 am
It’s also a funny sort of response to that old librarian bete noire — “I’m looking for this book, it’s green….”
Thanks for the ideas!
Melissa
September 23rd, 2010 at 1:10 pm
How simple and totally manageable. I love it!
September 23rd, 2010 at 7:35 pm
I love this display. A bit different than what one usually sees in a library.
September 30th, 2010 at 8:38 am
I love this display idea!! We actually “borrowed” the idea. One of my staff has decided that before Halloween we will add vampire teeth to the smile and display vampire books. We like to keep it simple!
September 30th, 2010 at 10:56 am
Oh – perfect! I love this idea! – Lynn
October 14th, 2010 at 7:44 am
I would love to see you post more bulletin board ideas. This is a good one, thanks.