Books, Audience, Action!

Dramatizing popular titles is a terrific way to attract teens

By James Blasingame and Alleen Pace Nilsen -- School Library Journal, 1/1/2004

While attending the 2002 Arizona Book Festival, we couldn't help but notice how many books there were for adults and children, but how few there were for teens. Obviously, we were very concerned that the youngsters who had outgrown Lemony Snicket wouldn't know where to find wonderful books for young adults. We knew we had to do something, so we devised book dramas, along with help from students in our young adult literature classes at Arizona State University (ASU), in Tempe.

Book dramas are much grander than booktalking. Just imagine an entire book turned into a one-act play, complete with actors, costumes, makeup, and props. And the dramatizations can be performed at book festivals, schools, public libraries, and just about anywhere there's interest.

Thirty students from our ASU Adolescent Literature class volunteered for our first book-drama performance. We broke them down into groups of five, with each team selecting a book that had a good review prior to its release. We knew that Jack Gantos was the featured children's author at the 2003 Arizona book festival, so we chose to dramatize What Would Joey Do? (2002) and Joey Pigza Swallowed the Key ( 1998, both Farrar). Our volunteers also decided to dramatize Eoin Colfer's Artemis Fowl: The Arctic Incident (Hyperion/Miramax, 2002), Gordon Korman's Son of the Mob (Hyperion, 2002), David Lubar's Dunk (Clarion, 2002), and Carl Hiaasen's Hoot (Knopf, 2002).

Our volunteers designed the costumes (sometimes we borrowed or rented costumes, but they did not exceed $100 per skit), and they wrote short plays based on each book. Props and scenery were typically borrowed from friends or from home, and each skit lasted about 30 minutes. To keep the attention of our audience between skits, we chose appropriate theme music. For instance, for The Son of the Mob, we chose the theme from The Godfather, and some groups conducted an audience-participation activity while others prepared for their own skits.

For Gantos's books, they chose to dramatize a Jerry Springer–like television panel with each character from the book appearing as a featured guest. To generate excitement before the performance, the Joey Pigza character pushed his eccentric grandmother, along with her oxygen tank, around the room in a grocery cart and talked to children. Our volunteers handed out flyers promoting our program and other future appearances, and after the show they gave a short talk summarizing the plot, outlining the life of the author, and recommending other titles. The audience was thrilled when Gantos stopped by and played himself in our performance.

Each book drama is accompanied with its own "book board," essentially a freestanding giant book jacket created by using two 40" x 60" styrofoam panels connected with two plastic hinges. A replica of the original book cover is glued on the left side and a printout of the plot summary, an author biography, and an annotated list of recommended books is glued to the right side. With all materials purchased from an arts and crafts store for about $25, book boards are not only great for advertising, but they later become a backdrop during the performance.

How did we pay for all of this? With a $1,500 grant from the Family Stage at the Arizona Book Festival. We used the money to buy enough copies of each book for our volunteers, to rent simple costumes, to tape theme music, and to make the book boards.

While our first book drama lasted three hours, you can tailor yours to run as long you'd like. It's also very easy to take one or two skits on the road. When Korman was the featured speaker at the October 2003 annual meeting of the Arizona English Teachers Association, we rounded up last year's students and performed an encore presentation of Son of the Mob. It seems everyone who sees our performances gains knowledge about young adult books and an appreciation for them.