Two Book Displays

Our book displays have been especially lovely lately.  I give full credit for this to my co-workers, who are very good at making these displays look extra-special.

The first display was done with lot of basketball books, both fiction and non-fiction, in honor of the NCAA basketball tournament.  The popularity of this display was, no doubt, helped by the Wisconsin Badgers' incredible run.  The big Badgers flag came from a staff member's house, and we posted an updated copy of the bracket every few days.

The second display was full of lovely Cinderella stories, in honor of the recent release of Disney's live-action movie.  The staff memeber who set this display up brought in her own shoes to use as the "glass slippers," and the mice and pumpkin came from our stash of storytime supplies.

Truffulla Trees

Credit for this beautiful Dr. Seuss display goes to one of my lovely co-workers.  Isn't it lovely?

The display is certainly dramatic, but my co-worker tells me that it was surprisingly easy to make.  The truffulla trees were made with large tissue paper flowers (there's lots of tutorials out there - here's one).  They were affixed to white cardboard poster tubes wrapped with black construction paper to give them their stripes.  The trees are propped up in a planter pulled from storage and surrounded by more tissue paper for the grass.  Writing with a Sharpie on a smooth stone made the "unless" stone - the perfect finishing touch.

Dr. Seuss' birthday, as well as the Read Across America initiative that celebrates this renowned author, falls on March 2.  How will you celebrate?

Wrapped Book Display

My Teen Advisory Group had a great idea for a book display this month.  We wrapped up books and set them out under a decorated Christmas tree.  I made up some stickers that listed the book's genre and affixed the stickers to the books.  People could then take one of the wrapped books and check them out with their library cards.  They wouldn't know anything about the book except for the genre until they took the book home and unwrapped it.

Since my library has RFID, checking out one of these wrapped books is super easy.  The wrapping paper doesn't get in the way of anything with RFID - just place the book on the pad and you're done.  Libraries that scan barcodes for checkout would need to take extra steps to either ensure that the books' barcodes remain visible or to write the barcode number on the wrapped book for manual entry.

December is a slow-ish month at the library with so much else going on, but the display has still been moderately successful.  The teens that I've spoken to who have checked out these books have all been intrigued by the mystery.

Dinosaur Poster

Today we set up a display of dinosaur books.  The display has only been up for about an hour and a half at the time of this writing, and we've already had to restock it twice.  Can't argue with that kind of enthusiasm!

One of my co-workers went into our storage closet to look for a dinosaur poster to hang near the display.  We were surprised that there was not much to choose from considering the huge number of posters we keep in storage.  Eventually she did find this gem of a poster buried at the bottom of the drawer:

Note the date at the bottom.  Wow.  I don't want to say how old I was when this poster was new, but I will say that I was very, very small.

Since this was the only dinosaur poster we could find, we decided to simply cut the date off at the bottom.  The rest of the poster is fine as is.  The illustration style isn't too terribly dated, so it works.

Star Wars Reads Day

On October 5 my library was able to participate in the national Star Wars Reads Day event.  The event at my library was one of hundreds of events taking place all over the country, and one of four events in the local two-county area.  It was lots of fun!  The program was fairly well attended, with an estimated 40 children and their corresponding adults in attendance.

Several stations were set up in different areas of the library, each with a different Star Wars activity to try.  The idea was that kids could wander from activity to activity at their own pace, picking and choosing what they wanted to try.

Three crafts were set up in our Community Room under the supervision of a few teen volunteers.  Generally, the crafts took care of themselves and kids could easily complete them on their own or with a parent's assistance.  The teens were mostly there to be the authority figure in the room and offer assistance if needed.

First, we did some Star Wars origami.

I copied the instructions for Yoda, Darth Vader, and R2-D2 from the Origami Yoda books by Tom Angleberger.  These designs are, in the grand scheme of origami, very easy to follow.  Yoda only requires five easy folds to complete, so even very young children were able to create some origami with a little help. No fancy origami paper required:  Angleberger's designs are all intended to be made with scrap paper, so I simply cut colored computer paper into fourths.  Crayons and markers were set out along with the colored paper so that kids could add details to their creations.


The second craft project was taken from the Star Wars Thumb Doodles book published by Klutz.

I purchased a copy of the book and set it out along with some blank cardstock bookmarks (we had some pre-cut left over from a past program, but you could easily cut your own cardstock too), stamp pads, and markers, and wipes for clean up.  The kids were invited to copy the designs included in the book and create their own bookmarks.  They did a great job!


Finally, kids were invited to make their own lightsabers using twister balloons and toilet paper tubes.  I discovered this project here.

This was a super easy project that, while appealing for all ages, was especially well-suited for our youngest attendees.  It was probably also our most popular activity of the day!  Amazingly enough, we didn't have a single popped balloon outside of the Community Room were the lightsabers were constructed.


Outside of the craft room we had a scavenger hunt throughout the library.

Ten different characters were hidden in plain sight in different areas of the library.  Each child was given a worksheet listing all of the places where they needed to look for a character.  When they found the character, they simply needed to write the name of the character next to the location where it was found.  Some of these names were a tad writing-intensive ("Chewbacca" has a lot of letters!), but very young children all had help from their parents if they needed it and no one complained at all about the writing.  Kids who turned in their scavenger hunt sheets to the Reference Desk were entered into a drawing for a few Star Wars book prizes.


We also had a big book display set up in the Children's Room.  Our smaller programming room adjacent to the Children's Room was set up as a special reading area.

I had been hoarding some of these Star Wars books for awhile in anticipation of the display, so I had lots of books ready to go.  The Darth Vader costume came courtesy of one of my co-workers whose son had dressed as Vader for Halloween the year before.  The reading area was not as well used and I would have preferred (I blame some staffing issues that made it difficult to really inform kids that the reading room was an option), but a decent number of books were checked out on the day of this program.  Good thing - the Star Wars book are the whole point of the event!


Finally, there was also an activity for adults.  Our Reference department put together a trivia contest to challenge fans of the franchise.  While the Reference department had adults in mind when they created the contest, they did allow kids to participate too.  Anyone who wanted to play simply had to answer eleven questions.  Most of these questions were multiple choice, but a handful required you to write in your answer.  The person who answered the most questions correctly won a lovely Star Wars prize pack.

All in all, the program was a great success!  Everyone seemed to have a great time.  We had decent number of kids come to the program in costume, which made it all the more fun.  Tiny Darth Vaders, Clone Troopers, Jedi, and Ewoks always make programs more exciting.  I'm hoping that we can participate in the Star Wars Reads Day event again next year - and hopefully get some of the "pro" costumed characters from the 501st Legion to attend as well!

Library Shouts

Several weeks ago we ordered a book for the children's nonfiction collection called Sneaky Art: Crafty Surprises to Hide in Plain Sight.  Written by Marthe Jocelyn, this book has lots of cute, whimsical crafts that can be pieced together with everyday objects and left behind in certain locations as art. 

As we were paging though the book, one of the projects in particular caught our attention:  Library Shouts.  To do this project, you basically cut out some paper in the shape of a speech bubble and decorate it with words, shapes, stickers, stamps, cutouts...whatever you have on hand.  You then stick the bubble's tail in a book.  The idea is that the speech bubble will draw attention to the book and encourage people to pick it up.

I thought this was a perfect project for my Teen Advisory Group, and my teens agreed.  We changed the format slightly and made bookmarks with a large, oval-shaped bubble at the top.  This shape seemed to provide a bit more stability, plus it fit a bit better in the relatively narrow space between the top of the books and the next shelf.  During this week's TAG group the teens took the bookmarks and went to town decorating them.  We used magazine cutouts (mostly for the sake of mismatched letters), construction paper, markers, and sequins to make our Library Shouts look amazing.  When they were finished I laminated all of the Library Shouts so that they will - hopefully - last a little bit longer.  Then it was just a matter or sticking them inside books that we loved!

We placed all of our Library Shouts in books in the Young Adult area since this is the collection near and dear to the teens' hearts. But theoretically we could use these bookmarks anywhere in the library!

I also was sure to get my library's circulation department on board with this project. My hope is that the circ staff will be able to take the bookmarks when patrons go to check these books out and return them to me so that I can reuse them in other books. I don't expect that we'll be able to keep these Library Shouts forever - eventually they'll get lost or walk away - but we want to be able to use this promotion for as long as possible.

Prom Book Display

It's hard to believe, but for many high schoolers prom is only a few short weeks away.  This means that teenage girls are busy finalizing their hair and makeup plans and trying on dresses, while boys are renting their tuxes and planning elaborate "promposals."  For many teens prom is a watershed rite of passages and as such, it has often been the subject of books targeted at teens. 

In honor of the upcoming festivities, I put together a display of prom-themed books in the teen area.

 
Here are a few of the titles featured:

Prom by Laurie Halse Anderson
When a faculty advisor is arrested for stealing the funds for the prom and the event is cancelled, Ashley Hannigan feels terrible for her best friend and prom-enthusiast Natalia and so comes up with a plan to get the prom back on track.

Perfectly Dateless by Kristin Billerbeck
Entering her senior year at St. James Christian Academy, Daisy has less than 200 days to look stylish, develop social skills, find the right boy for the prom, and convince her parents to let her date.

Prom and Prejudice by Elizabeth Eulberg
This book is modern adaptation of the classic Jane Austin novel.  For Lizzie Bennett, a music scholarship student at Connecticut's exclusive, girls-only Longbourn Academy, the furor over prom is senseless.  Even more puzzling is her attraction to the pompous Will Darcy, best friend of her roommate's boyfriend.

Tessa Masterson Will Go to Prom by Emily Franklin and Brendan Halpin
Feeling humiliated and confused when his best friend Tessa rejects his prom invitation and comes out of the closet, high school senior Luke must decide if he should stand by Tessa when she invites a female date to the prom, sparking controversy in their small Indiana town.

21 Proms edited by David Levithan and Daniel Ehrenhaft
A full spectrum of good dates, bad dates, unexpected dates, and more is covered in 21 stories from a range of YA authors, including Jacqueline Woodson, Holly Black, Melissa de la Cruz, E. Lockhart, and Leslie Margolis.

Captain Underpants Display

Recently we decided to replace all of our well-worn Captain Underpants books with brand new, shiny, clean copies.  Since we're likely to never again have them all in one place at the same time, we thought it was a good time to do a fun display:

 

I giggle every time I walk past the display.  Wouldn't you?

All underpants displayed here are brand new, but will eventually go home to certain staff people's husbands. 

Fractured Fairy Tales

I love a good fractured fairy tale. This month my book display in the teen area is full of such stories!


Here are just a few books that have made an appearance on this display:

Cloaked by Alex Flinn
This story is made up of bits of several different tales, including "The Elves and the Shoemaker," "The Six Swans," and "The Frog Prince." The crazy combinations keep this book interesting. Flinn has also written a number of other fairy tale renditions, including the popular Beastly.

Princess of the Midnight Ball by Jessica Day George
This novel is a retelling of "The Twelve Dancing Princesses". The setting is especially intriguing in this version - it makes me think of 18th Century Europe. Also, the hero is a young man who knits. If you liked this one, also try the companion novel, Princess of Glass.

Sisters Red by Jackson Pearce
This book takes many of "Little Red Riding Hood's" themes and builds a story fit for a modern setting. There are also supernatural elements as sisters Scarlett and Rosie hunt werewolves.

A Long Long Sleep by Anna Sheehan
"Sleeping Beatury" meets the popular sci-fi genre in this book. Doesn't that sound like an intriguing combination?

Toads and Diamonds by Heather Tomlinson
A retelling of the fairy tale of the same name, in which a mistreated younger sister is blessed to have diamonds and flowers fall from her lips when she speaks. Her older step-sister attempts to earn the same blessing, but is cursed for her arrogance as snakes and toads fall from her mouth instead. This version is set in India.

If You Liked The Hunger Games

Not too long ago when The Hunger Games movie was released, I started a book display in the teen area full of Hunger Games read-alikes. The book has been so popular and was made even more so with the movie's release, so it seemed like a good idea to give teens something to read until their holds came in. Needless to say, the display has been popular.


Here are just a few of the books included in the display:

The Maze Runner by James Dashner
Thomas wakes up in an elevator with no memory of his past. He finds himself in an area known as The Glade with other boys who have been trying to survive and find a way out of the maze that surrounds them. Action and a sinister setting make for a compelling read.

Incarceron by Catherine Fisher
Finn is a prisoner who is convinced that he once had a life outside of Incarceron and is determined to escape. Claudia is the warden's daughter who is desperate to find a way out of her arranged marriage and the political games that go with it. When the two find a way to communicate Claudia realizes that they may be able to help each other. This book is more fantasy than sci-fi, but it does have the adventure elements and political intrigue that will appeal to fans of The Hunger Games.

Among the Hidden by Margaret Peterson Haddix
In a future where it is illegal for parents to have more than two children, Luke is a third-born hidden away in his attic where no one will find him. Then he meets another third-born girl who makes his dream of freedom seem real. I like to give this book to middle-schoolers and other younger readers who are interested in The Hunger Games but might be too young for some of the other books on this list.

Girl in the Arena by Lise Haines
Lyn watches her seventh step-father die as a gladiator in the arena. She then realizes that she will have to marry the man who killed him. Much like The Hunger Games, fights to the death are televised on live TV as a part of the culture.

Divergent by Veronica Roth
In this book's universe, the people of what was once Chicago are divided into factions, each of which values a specific virtue above all else. Like the rest of her peers Beatrice takes a test when she turns 16 to determine which faction she is best suited for. Unfortunately Beatrice's results are inconclusive - a feat which is rare and places her in danger. Beatrice must decide which faction she wishes to join and hope that she can survive the rigorous initiation process.

Blood Red Road by Moira Young
Saba lives in a wasteland, and her family finds what they need by scavenging old landfills. But when her brother Lugh is captured, Saba teams up with a group of freedom fighters to get him back.

Mice Are Nice

We have a new book display up here in the library all about our favorite little critters - mice!


Actually, it's pretty impressive how many books we can come up with about mice for children of just about any age. Our display includes titles like:

Picture Books
Owen by Kevin Henkes
Frederick by Leo Lionni
Library Mouse by Daniel Kirk
Now It Is Winter by Eileen Spinelli
Mouse Paint by Ellen Stol Walsh

Chapter Books
The Mouse and the Motorcycle by Beverly Cleary
The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo
Redwall by Brian Jacques
Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh by Robert C. O'Brien
Secrets at Sea by Richard Peck

Mystery ABC Book

Today I took an interesting question from a patron. A mother was in the library and noticed our display of alphabet books, which reminded her of a book she had read with her oldest daughter years ago. She said that the book was wonderful because it only had one letter on each page and the whole thing was done in bright primary colors. She also made a point of mentioning that the letters themselves were large but unembellished - no fancy fonts, no letters created by objects, etc. We quickly established that the book she was remembering was not currently on display.

Well, there are a lot of alphabet books in the library so I knew this would be a challenging search. Nothing immediately sprang to mind so I turned to my good friend Novelist for help. This database (available at many public libraries across the country and provided for all Wisconsin residents through BadgerLink) is a wonderful resource for questions like this where a patron remembers a few details from a book but not the title or author. I typed "alphabet, one letter per page" into the search bar and got a whole list of possible books.

Fortunately the book we were looking for was only the second book on the list of results. We were also lucky enough to find the book was on the shelf! The book we were searching for turned out to be Max's ABC by Rosemary Wells. In this story Max's ants escape from their ant farm. Chaos ensues until his sister Ruby comes to the rescue. Each page features a different letter of the alphabet drawn in large, bright, plain type in the illustration and includes a number of alliterative words that move the story along and reinforce the letter's sound. While perhaps not what I would describe as primary, the colors used to illustrate the letters and the backgrounds are definitely bright and bold.

Both Mom and her oldest daughter were able to confirm that this was the book they remembered after leafing through a few pages. They decided to take the story home with them to share with a younger sibling.

Looking for more great alphabet books? Here are a few others that were featured in our book display:

LMNO Peas by Keith Baker
Bad Kitty by Nick Bruel
Alphabet Under Construction by Denise Flemming
Chicka Chicka Boom Boom by Bill Martin, Jr.
Superhero ABC by Bob McLeod
Apple Pie ABC by Alison Murray
A Isn't for Fox: An Isn't Alphabet by Wendy K. Ulmer

Warm Winter Reads

Once there was a librarian who refused to go overboard with the Christmas decorations. But when her supervisor hinted that maybe she should do something festive with the bulletin boards, the librarian decided that she should probably come up with a new idea - and fast!

Thus the Warm Winter Reads display was born:


With less than two weeks remaining until Christmas it seemed kind of silly to do something holiday themed. So I went with a broader winter theme instead, which I could in theory leave up through February if desired. Much in the spirit of the mystery bulletin board I did this fall, I pulled nearly every book (both picture books and chapter books) I could think of that had a story tied up in the winter season and/or that had a cover featuring snow. I made color copies of the covers and mounted them on colored paper. Blue paper snowflakes were cut out and added some visual interest. The tagline at the top reads, "Curl up with a warm winter read." No printed reading list this time since, honestly, I just didn't have time to put one together.

Mystery Bulletin Board

As a general rule, I do not like cutesy little slogans that tell you how wonderful reading is. I especially don't like seeing them at the public library. Because really, if you're inside the public library chances are that you already understand how much fun reading can be. Why belabor the point?

So when I started planning one of my new bulletin board displays for this fall, I knew that I wanted to highlight something a little more specific that the library had to offer. I decided to focus on a reading list that I had complied over the summer, highlighting various mysteries for school-age readers. My hope is that instead of preaching to the choir about the wonders of reading, perhaps a display like this will highlight an aspect of the library's collection that some kids have not yet explored.

This display was easy to make. The primary focus of the display is images of book covers backed by colorful paper. I also printed a few large mystery-themed images to fill in some space on this large bulletin board. One end of the display features a pocket holding the reading list itself. That way if the images have proven inspirational, kids and parents can help themselves to a copy of the mystery book list.