Reading Railroad (Monopoly)

By Tracy Taylor

Thanks to Tracy for sharing this AMAZING Monopoly board display!

Tracy plans to have a contest asking students to submit the book title and author of each of the destinations for a prize - it's sure to go well!

Six Words

Michelle Reid

Many thanks to Michelle for sharing this fabulous idea - definitely one to try!

We held a “Six-Word Book Review” challenge this spring, inspired by SMITH Magazine’s six-word memoirs. The rules were simple: students and staff could choose any book, and write exactly 6 words about it. Their response could be their reaction to the book, a “teaser,” a summary, description of a character – pretty much anything they wanted to say about the book. I made a short Power-Point presentation so our Language Arts teachers could share the challenge with their classes, and the slideshow also ran on a monitor next to the entry forms in the library. We provided a few examples at the beginning, both in the display case and the Powerpoint, to get students thinking. I typed up new submissions each day and posted them in the display case. We held periodic drawings for small prizes using the submissions as the entry forms, and students could submit as many 6-word entries as they liked. Over the next 2 ½ weeks, we received 133 six-word reviews of 112 different books!

Six of our favorite submissions:
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix – Umbridge is a hag. Sirius dies.
The Book Thief – Death takes a liking to Liesel.
The Shining – Corrupt hotel, enter if you dare.
Girls that Growl – Cheerleaders gone feral at school…run!
City of Bones – Upgrade from Twilight…angels and demons.
Crank – Girl’s anguished verse: don’t do drugs!

I could keep going with examples, this challenge brought out so much creativity from our students and we had many excellent submissions. Only a few were generic reviews – the bulk were strongly connected to the specific book.
The signage was created using MSPublisher and a color printer.
The 6-word logo (upper RH) and “Say it in Six” are from the SMITH Magazine website.

Photographic Competition

By Barbara Plumb

The library at Trinity Catholic College, Lismore, are running another photo competition. This year the theme is 'Focus on action'. Thanks for sharing this idea Barbara, I like the way that you are actively encouraging the arts in the library and the way it will naturally involve the engagement of a different set of students. At the moment I am gathering information about libraries as 'maker-spaces' and this competition would fit into that idea well.

We moustache you to check out these great books!

By Anne Foster

I love this quirky and humorous display from Anne -  Library Media Assistant at Webber Middle School.

It's a great display promoting a very worthy cause.

Here are the details from Anne:

'Our middle school participates each year in “No Shave November”, where teachers grow beards in support of men’s health research. Students can donate spare change to the teacher they feel has the best beard. The money raised goes to support one of our students who is battling brain cancer.

I created this display after seeing the posters and removable moustache stickers at the Demco website. I then pulled all the books I could find with faces on the front cover. I added the removable stickers and made my display.

We also purchased moustache bookmarks to give to students. At the end of November, we will have a ‘moustache’ dress up day where students can buy self-sticking moustaches and wear them. Proceeds from the sales will also go to support our student in her fight against cancer'.

Graphic Novel Art Competition

By Denise Borck

This is a great idea to involve students who love graphic novels and illustration.
Should boost the loans of graphic novels too!
For more information check out the post on Denise's Blog: Life in the Library 

*Thanks for sharing Denise.

Lucky Dip Reads

By Lynda Sisson

This great idea from Lynda was enthusiastically received by her students. 

Competition - Be adventurous - Choose a Lucky Dip Book - And give yourself an unexpected wow!!

What a fun way to extend students reading! 

I understand there were some yummy prize draws involved as added incentive!