Turning Reading into a Party

Last year, school Librarians from three elementary schools just North of Amherst, MA, decided to create a fun and splashy way to participate in the Massachusetts Children's Book Award (MCBA). Sponsored by Salem State College since 1975, the program is designed to keep fourth to sixth graders interested in reading books.

Here's how it works: participating teachers, librarians, and publishers statewide nominate 25 titles published within the last five years that possess literary merit, cultural diversity, and reader appeal. The books often include adventure stories, historical fiction, and sports. Eligible students—those who've read a minimum of five books—then vote for their favorite title. The annual event, which takes place from September to February, gives school librarians another opportunity to booktalk and gives kids a taste of what it's like to be judges on the Caldecott and Newbery awards committees.

Participation is completely voluntary, but many students, both boys and girls, take part because they like the idea of choosing the winner themselves. Since each of our schools has less than 200 students, a high rate of participation can seem small (at Erving, about 45 students are eligible). Nevertheless, we feel it's important to get as many kids involved as possible.

My school, Erving Elementary School, along with nearby Shutesbury Elementary School and Leverett Elementary School, decided to take the program one step further by offering students an evening of book-related activities that involve physical skills, wordplay, and artistic challenges. All three school librarians check their calendars for a Friday night that's free. And then we're ready to party! During the week immediately preceding the evening, students are divided into teams made up of boys and girls from all three schools. This year, 60 students were presented with formal invitations, which they considered an honor, and we considered an achievement because the whole event is geared toward making reading cool.

At the party we organized a relay race based on the Newbery winner Bud, Not Buddy (Delacorte, 1999) by Christopher Paul Curtis, a tale of a 1930's boy searching for his estranged father. We also created an obstacle course involving kicking a ball around based on the book Soccer Duel (Little, Brown, 2000) by Matt Christopher. And inspired by David Almond's Skellig (Delacorte, 1999), a book about a boy's encounter with a mysterious creature, we had students construct an imaginary person made from materials found in the library. We also offered a haiku-writing activity based on The Mouse of Amherst (Farrar/Frances Foster, 1999) by Elizabeth Spires, a story about Emily Dickinson. In honor of the book, which focuses on a mouse that takes up residence in the poet's room, we offered healthy food that mice like to snack on—kids nibbled on bite-sized morsels of cheese, fruit, popcorn, and cookies. At the end of each activity, students were given lines from a poem and were asked to organize verses in a way that made sense. The kids' completed poems became their tickets to snack time.

One measure of our success was the number of participating students who weren't the top readers in their classes. Children who normally wouldn't be motivated to read five books from our list of nominees were interested enough in the program to satisfy the requirements. Parental involvement was also key to this program's success; 20 parent volunteers offered their services for the evening, running game stations and acting as team leaders.

Since many states have a children's book award, any school with a librarian can easily replicate our program. It's inexpensive—all three schools split the $100 cost for the entire evening, which covered food, custodial staff, awards, and incidentals. Students met children from other schools and had a great time working together. Meanwhile, we librarians had a wonderful time, and we look forward to running a similar program every year.