Booklist Online: More than 130,000 book reviews for librarians, book groups, and book lovers - from the trusted experts at the American Library Association

Cindy: One of my teachers pitched an idea at the beginning of the school year that has really taken off. 7th grade ELA teacher Amy Duistermars suggested that the staff post signs outside their classroom doors with what they are currently reading. Students see what book their teachers are reading and initiate conversations about books that they find interesting. Some staff post only middle grade and YA titles, some feature professional reading, and others post appropriate adult leisure reading.

Some teachers have a laminated sign or a plastic page protector posted and then just replace the book cover art as they switch to a new book. Others print a whole new sheet each time. A few include annotations or quotes from the book in their signs. My library secretary and I have ours posted outside of the library. To give the book promotion further attention, we ask that when the staff update their signs that they give us the previously read book sheets. We trim them to the book cover image and are building a year long bulletin board outside the library of the reading our staff has done.

We don’t have 100% participation, but those that are playing along have enjoyed the conversations it has encouraged with our students–and among staff. One of my science teachers saw my sign for Moonbird by Philip Hoose last fall and asked to borrow the book when I was done. It’s an easy idea to implement.

What are you currently reading? Leave us a comment.

Lynn:  Just to join in, I’m reading Tapir Scientist by Sy Montgomery (Houghton 2013) and The Summer Prince (Scholastic/Arthur Levine March 2013) by Alaya Dawn Johnson.  How about you?

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 6th, 2013 at 6:59 pm and is filed under Displays, Readers Advisory. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.