Part of my summer has been spent ordering books for our students.  Not just library books, but acutally books FOR our students.  Last year our district decided to purchase a book for every student in our district K-12.  Each grade level was given a choice and the district paid for a paperback copy that was to be used during the first unit of the 2013-2014 school year.  Last year our seniors received a copy of  The Road by Cormac McCarthy, AP Language students received The Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell.  Juniors got Eli the Good by Silas House.  Sophomores and Freshmen received  their choice of the 2014 KBA nominated books (more on this later) and 8th graders got Same Sun Here by Silas House and Neela Vaswani.  Some of the cool things that happened as a result of this book buy are, Paul Volponi Skyped with students who selected his book Final Four, Katie McGarry came and talked with students who selected Pushing the Limits, and Neela Vaswani spoke to the entire 8th grade about epistolary novels.  We tweeted with Silas House about book trailers students created for Eli the Good and had an Open House for voting for the Kentucky Book Awards.  We had such success with these books that this year, our SBDM council voted to buy books for our student AGAIN!  YAY!  English teachers shared with me that when the KBA books arrived some of them treated it as an “award ceremony” calling their names as they got their book.  Others in the class applauded as they picked up their book and a general buzz was in the air.

NOW TO THE BEST PART!  BECAUSE OF THE SUCCESS WE HAD LAST YEAR, OUR SBDM DECIDED TO DO THIS AGAIN!

Here’s what that looks like.  AP Literature students will get a copy of Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood, AP Language students will get The Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell, Englsih 101/102 students will get A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah.  All other students got their choice of a 2015 KBA book. http://kba.nku.edu/

Here is how that process went.  We placed a book trailer for each book on Blendspace (if you don’t know what this is, check out it. https://www.blendspace.com/ It’s awesome)  and purchased on copy of each book.  Each English class spent a day watching book trailers, skimming the books, and reading reviews before selecting a book.  We created a spreadsheet on Excel with the titles across the top and student names down the left side.  After all classes selected, I tallied the numbers and placed the order.   We turned in the PO in June, but the order won’t be filled until fall because some of the titles don’t come out in paperback until then.  The one big snag is the book The 5th Wave which is selling so well, it won’t be out in paperback until next summer.  That means we will either need to buy hard copies for the students who chose that or make them re select in the fall (budget blower!).  I hope we can swing the hard copies because I want them to get the books they chose.    The best part is the book conversations we will all be able have!  With the exception of AP and 101/102, all of our students selected a KBA nominated book.  Many of our teachers agreed to read at least one over the summer so they can talk with students about books! 

I am the Weapon Previously Known as Boy Nobody was the most selected title.

I “borrowed” an idea from a neighboring library http://ochslibrary.wordpress.com/ and created scratch off cards for the KBA books.  One part dishwashing liquid to two parts metallic acrylic paint painted on a slick surface (we used bar code covers) = a scratch off.  Use a business card template in Publisher to create 10 “cards” and put a symbal on one of them (like the KBA logo).  Print the cards on card stock, place a bar code cover over the blank space and paint it.  Each time a student read and voted for a KBA book, they got a scratch off.  Winners got a mini candy bar.  If they read two KBA books during the year, they got an invitation to the Open House in March.  (my aides kept up with voting using Excel).  The Open House consisted of brownies, a voting booth, and registration for door prizes.  It was  a HUGE hit.  I’ve attached a copy of the Open House invite and a link above to the KBA party idea.   KBA party invite