Teen Read Week Program Idea

I had this crazy Teen Read Week program idea back during summer reading, and while I am sad I won't be running it, I wanted to pass it along for anyone looking for something exceedingly simple and quick to put together, especially if you're doing a last minute scramble.

If It Floats Your Boat is the name of it, and it's as straight forward as it sounds: feed your teens root beer floats. Buy some vanilla ice cream and root beer (or cream soda, red pop, etc.) and set the supplies on the table. Let the teens have all access.

In the mean time, pull together a pile of books -- both those that are new releases and those that might be lagging a bit on the shelves. Hop onto YouTube and build a play list of book trailers for those books. Put them all together so they'll stream one after another, then pull down your big screen and let the program be just that.

Is it subtle? Sure. Is it also straight forward book promotion? You bet. And the best part is that with the draw of free ice cream and root beer, you might bring in teens who would otherwise not go to the program. Since you're not putting together book talks yourself, nor are you pressuring kids to read or check out certain books, you might just capture their interest, even if by accident. For your big readers, what could be better than hearing about a bunch of good books, eating ice cream, then being able to check them out right away? It's all about whatever floats their boats!

The only tip is to make sure you pick good book trailers. It might take a bit of time on your part to pull the strong ones -- the ones that capture audience interest immediately and get to the point fairly quickly (under a minute usually) -- but the easy and low-cost aspects of the program should make it worth it. Bonus: it fits "Picture This" as a theme quite well.