We have an area in our library for children's/teen books, but no one is checking them out. What have you done to attract and keep young readers?
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We have an area in our library for children's/teen books, but no one is checking them out. What have you done to attract and keep young readers?
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First of all, we have the Teen Interest area separate from the Children's. They have separate seating and tables. The Teen area is closer to the Adult area, as they look ahead to what they will be, not what they were.
Ours is seperate also, with the teen books on the same bookcase as the adult fiction.
I would like to know this as well! Our section for teenagers is not frequented much. One thing that has worked for me is getting newer copies of books because the cover art is bright and colorful and that's drawing their attention. Fantasy books especially. Our most recent one that is popular is the Wingfeather Saga by Andrew Peterson. It was just rereleased with new art (there's five books total) and I have to keep a list going of who gets which book next! They love it. I've learned this with children's books as well. Lots displayed where kids can see them as well as parents so they can choose based on the cover. And the cover is important, it grabs their attention, so newer books with colorful covers are always popular here.
I'd like any advice for getting parents to read to their young babies. We put the story collection books in a separate case in the children's area, but I'm just not seeing many checkouts for these. Any ideas? Thanks so much. Martha
I have a book stand in the hallway where most families walk by our library. On this stand I have two sections, parenting books and board books to encourage parents to read to them. I also put up little signs to label a section of books "read together" and even summer reading programs where I encourage all kids, babies included, to complete but the baby one has to be completed with parents.
We have a "Children's Corner", where there are board books, pictures books, elementary chapter books, kids' non-fiction and biographies, and a collection of DVD's. We weed and update this area often, trying to make sure that we have good books there and that they don't look old and dated. We include books that aren't necessarily Christian but which promote biblical character qualities and are really great, well-written stories (we call them "Good Reads"). We have a reading program for kids each summer, which promotes the library and the kids' area. One thing we have, which is not up to us at all, is a lot of families who love to read to and with their kids...and so our children's area gets a fair bit of traffic.
We also have a couple of bookcases full of teen books. We recently did some serious work there, weeding out the dated-looking, and adding new books. Some which were good but had dated covers, we replaced with newer and more attractive-looking covers.
I have labeled all the AR books (spine label reads CF BER AR) and put reading level, points, word count and quiz number inside the front cover
Last year we drew names and gave away a monthly prize to 1 child/teen and 1 adult who checked out a book during that month
Our books are in a section by themselves, and are seperated by age/reading level. What are the points and quiz numbers that you are talking about?
Our schools here push collecting points they only get the points if they read books at their reading level and can pass a quizz about the book Several schools also have clubs like the Million Word Club that reward reading by word count. This is true for Christian schools too.
You can go to Acclerated Reader site and type in author or title and come up with Book Level, AR points, word count, and quizz number. Sometimes there is more than one version of the book and I always make sure to match covers
Thanks for the explanation. There are several teachers in our congregation. I'll see if that's something their school is doing.