How do you start the beginning of the year?

Aside from welcoming the students back for their new school year, I like to start with a promotion highlighting my most favorite read: in this case Ready Player One by Ernest Cline.  

The first thing I do is make a huge cover of the book. Luckily in Hong Kong we’ve got this great web based company called the Bannershop. Making promotional items with them is super cheap. Then, in keeping with the theme of my library’s signage, I made arrows signs saying things like, “My favorite summer read” or “Get your own copy.” For the students to receive their own copy all they had to do was write a review of one of their favorite books. Plus they could enter as many times as they wanted. This was a great way to get students promoting what to read. It was their very own “good reads!”

At the end of August, I pulled down all the reviews and drew ten names. Oh! The kids were so excited to receive Ready Player One—one student even asked if he could have the enormous poster I had made. Have you read this book yet? Make sure to read it before the movie comes out and stay tuned for an upcoming book review of Ready Player One.

This school year I’ve made a librarian goal for myself: I want to give away more books to the students. I plan to use part of my book collection budget on this. I think it’d be safe to say the most everyone loves owning a book!