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A Passion for Print: Promoting Reading and Books to Teens
Get teens excited about reading by using your own love of books along with a good dose of market savvy. This simple, upbeat guide is packed with practical guidelines and a wealth of exciting ideas for promoting books and reading through everything you do―from collection building, designing the space, and creating a Web site, to booktalking, readers' advisory, and special events. A practical, step-by-step approach.
Promoting books and reading is one of your most important roles, but reaching teens and inspiring them to read can be a challenge, especially now, when teens have so many other commitments and interests. This guide will inspire you to build your book knowledge and combine it with marketing savvy to bring teens together with books and reading. Drawing upon recent research on teens and libraries, the author offers practical guidelines and a wealth of exciting ideas for environmental reading promotions (collection building, designing the space, creating publicity materials and developing the web site), as well as interactive promotions (communication with teens, readers advisory, booktalking, partnering with other organizations, and book-related activities and events). Based on the author's experience and the experience of others who work with teens, the book provides librarians and other educators with a simple, handy, and upbeat guide. Grades 6-12.
Promoting books and reading is one of your most important roles, but reaching teens and inspiring them to read can be a challenge, especially now, when teens have so many other commitments and interests. This guide will inspire you to build your book knowledge and combine it with marketing savvy to bring teens together with books and reading. Drawing upon recent research on teens and libraries, the author offers practical guidelines and a wealth of exciting ideas for environmental reading promotions (collection building, designing the space, creating publicity materials and developing the web site), as well as interactive promotions (communication with teens, readers advisory, booktalking, partnering with other organizations, and book-related activities and events). Based on the author's experience and the experience of others who work with teens, the book provides librarians and other educators with a simple, handy, and upbeat guide. Grades 6-12.
- GenresEducationNonfiction
256 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 2006
20 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
January 25, 2022
Good information but not a whole lot of new information. Some of the links are broken but then this book has a copyright date of 2006. A lot of the books mentioned I have heard of but aren't new at all.
August 4, 2012
WHAT I LIKED:
This book is meant to show librarians to organize materials, space, and programming for teens and goes into great depth on that topic. As a public school teacher, I skipped over parts here and there that wouldn't be applicable to me.
However, there are a lot of useful suggestions for how to make things catch a teenager's eye. Set aside a place for teenagers that just for them - not part of the children's area, but still separate from the adult area. Use the principles of graphic design to create eye-catching posters and book displays. Give booktalks. Booktalks are new to me but there's an entire chapter.
One of my favorite suggestions was to clean things up but then muss it up a bit. You want the space to look like teenagers actually use it and not some pristine, sterile place.
There is a chapter called "Building Teen Collections" with lists of a few books targeting a wide variety of topics. This could be very useful!
WHAT I DIDN'T LIKE:
With a few exceptions that acknowledge this fact, the book glosses over the fact that some teenagers are reading below grade level and/or may not enjoy reading. Yes, some teenagers love to read books and it's important to keep encouraging that. However, how do you reach the kids who don't read and who may struggle with it? Those kids are probably less likely to go to a library in the first place, so maybe the author doesn't have much experience with those teenagers.
FAVORITE QUOTES:
Clinton [a researcher] suggests that older kids and teens are expected to just "get it" without the same level of structure and support that was devoted to their achieving readings skills in early grades. If they don't get it, the act of reading itself becomes a struggle, and every difficult encounter with a book reinforces a sense of inadequacy and failure. If you were lousy at baseball, computer games, or playing a musical instrument, would you seek out opportunities to feel bad? (p. 9)
This book is meant to show librarians to organize materials, space, and programming for teens and goes into great depth on that topic. As a public school teacher, I skipped over parts here and there that wouldn't be applicable to me.
However, there are a lot of useful suggestions for how to make things catch a teenager's eye. Set aside a place for teenagers that just for them - not part of the children's area, but still separate from the adult area. Use the principles of graphic design to create eye-catching posters and book displays. Give booktalks. Booktalks are new to me but there's an entire chapter.
One of my favorite suggestions was to clean things up but then muss it up a bit. You want the space to look like teenagers actually use it and not some pristine, sterile place.
There is a chapter called "Building Teen Collections" with lists of a few books targeting a wide variety of topics. This could be very useful!
WHAT I DIDN'T LIKE:
With a few exceptions that acknowledge this fact, the book glosses over the fact that some teenagers are reading below grade level and/or may not enjoy reading. Yes, some teenagers love to read books and it's important to keep encouraging that. However, how do you reach the kids who don't read and who may struggle with it? Those kids are probably less likely to go to a library in the first place, so maybe the author doesn't have much experience with those teenagers.
FAVORITE QUOTES:
Clinton [a researcher] suggests that older kids and teens are expected to just "get it" without the same level of structure and support that was devoted to their achieving readings skills in early grades. If they don't get it, the act of reading itself becomes a struggle, and every difficult encounter with a book reinforces a sense of inadequacy and failure. If you were lousy at baseball, computer games, or playing a musical instrument, would you seek out opportunities to feel bad? (p. 9)
March 31, 2009
With the dream of becoming a school librarian, I read this book during a YA literature course. Overall the book contained great explanations & practical suggestions. While I found the majority of it incredibly helpful on how to help promote literacy to YA, I was a bit disappointed that the focus was on public YA librarians with little to no school librarian suggestions.
May 9, 2015
This book has some interesting ideas about promoting teen materials and activities in the library but i found some ideas kind of odd. Overall there is some useful information but there is also stuff that seems impractical or out of touch compared to what i have been learning in school. Overall you can still get some good ideas for teen spaces
March 24, 2009
I am not a librarian, but I am interested in promoting literacy. I thought it would be good to check it out from the librarian's perspective. Although our school doesn't have a "library" there are still lots of ideas that she has for us to think about.
April 16, 2008
Anyone who works with books and teens, needs to, should most definitely read this book!! Lots of great ideas!
March 4, 2015
Interesting read.
August 25, 2016
A great book for librarians seeking to reach teen readers. This books gives you ideas on how to promote and display books so they leave the shelves with readers. Geared toward young adult librarians.
July 5, 2015
Lots of great ideas to freshen up my services to teens.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews