My aide and I have been contemplating ideas for Teen Read week. We are both excited about the theme: “Turn Dreams into Reality.” As we get through Banned Books Week and our Scholastic Book Week, we need to try and remember that TRW is fast approaching.

I particularly enjoyed this article posted by Kylie Peters, “Learning From Teens: Thoughts for Teen Read Week.” She suggests that sometimes we ” forget that some of our greatest resources are the very subjects of our resource-sharing: the teens themselves.” I can be guilty of thinking myself the expert on collection development, choosing “important” books that I think my students should want to read. This article reminds me that some of my very best ideas for purchasing come from the kids themselves. I have worked hard to create a welcoming atmosphere where students feel very comfortable sharing their favorite books with me.

She inspired me with a couple of new, relatively simple to execute ideas. I loved her idea of a “Take a Book; Leave a Book” display where students must replace a book that they check out with one of their favorite books from our stacks. I also like the simple idea of leaving genre book-lists around and seeing which ones disappear first. As soon as I get through the book fair, I will be working to launch these ideas and will be looking for more like them!