PASSIONATE ABOUT SCHOOL LIBRARIES
These are my displays promoting the Book of the Year Notables and Short list.
Inspired by Shaun Tan’s artwork this year, I have used red, orange and yellow as my main theme colours. I used Outback as the font, which I downloaded from dafont. Yellow and orange crepe paper in a simple twist pattern create a quick and easy border.
Both the Notables list and Short list can be found on the CBCA website.
Book Week is a fantastic time for promoting libraries and engaging readers in a variety of activities to increase their connection with reading, Australian literature and library services. Here are just a few activity ideas, both my own and adaptions from others’, for this year’s Book Week.
Guest storyteller: Many libraries are fortunate to be able to afford a special guest visitor or author during the Book Week celebrations. This year storytellers, performers and Indigenous storytellers are sure to be popular. But if the budget doesn’t stretch to such an event, perhaps look within the library or school community. I’m sure someone within that population sticks out as a person who is good at spinning a yarn or has a knack for making a story spring to life. And if you still can’t find a willing victim, perhaps try an online video or retelling.
Group storytelling: Story cards and dice, such as Rory’s Story Cubes, are excellent for promoting storytelling with a group. While any story cards or flip chart would work I particularly like the Story Cubes (no, I’m not being paid to write this), as they are so tactile and pretty. But a cube net that students can create and design their own set of cubes would also work.
Bingo: I’ve promoted this Reading Bingo from Random House before, but I think it would make an excellent giant bingo game. Create a giant board by enlarging each square and laminating. You would also need smaller copy to cut up and place in a container from which to randomly draw each square. As a square is drawn players have to name a title that fits, e.g. A Book That Became A Movie – The Hobbit. Write the book title on the square on the giant board (use a whiteboard marker so that it can be erased to play multiple times). This could be played competitively, with the names of students also listed on the squares, in teams or simply to see how quickly a group can fill the whole grid or one line.
Scrabble or Bananagrams: Check out this post from Constantly Lovestruck about a giant game of bananagrams, with a list of how many tiles you will need of each letter.
Pac-Man: This librarian created a giant Pac-Man board on the floor of her library. Details can be found on the blog Tvahlsing.
Guess Who: I have seen giant Guess Who games and DIY Guess Who games using everyone from Bible characters to US Presidents. I would make a giant Guess Who game using book characters. You could use animated characters from popular titles such as Diary of a Wimpy Kid or instead use the actors that have become the iconic representations of book characters.
The theme for Book Week 2016, Australia: Story Country, offers plenty of great ways to celebrate and decorate!!! Here are some of the ways I hope to decorate the library for this year’s Book Week.
Every year the library displays the books on the Book of the Year Short list, which you can find on the CBCA website. 
This year a backdrop of hessian and Aussie road signs will decorate this display and give it an Aussie touch.
I plan to update the Reading Tree to a Coolibah Tree, like the one mentioned in Waltzing Matilda, changing the leaves to gumtree-shaped leaves. 
With a few neutral coloured pieces of fabric, the bench seats will feel a little more outback-like and a fake campfire in the centre of the area will create a great space to gather for storytelling. Hanging stars will give the area an-outdoor, storytelling under the stars feel.
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