I worked at the cutest little bookstore coffee shop last week. In that small space, the collection had to be heavily curated, with just one or two books by popular authors and launching points for popular series books for kids. But the shop still held one full bookshelf for staff recommendations, covers out. Each employee had their shelf: “Sarah recommends….,” “Tia recommends…., “William recommends…,” etc.
And while I had plenty of my own ideas about what authors I might like to read, I found myself spending a good chunk of my browsing time finding out what Sarah, Tia, William, and the rest of the crew recommended. After all, if someone took the time to share their top favorites of all time, I knew they must be worth MY time.
It’s this bees-to-honey concept that makes me return, time and again, to the importance of the classroom library and the way you display it. While it’s easy to brush off the aesthetics of the library, I repeatedly find that they matter a lot. Fresh displays, careful displays, displays that center books that students love the most… these things support your reading program from the outside in. Students can’t become readers without the right books, and the physical space of the library is our chance to show off those books.
So this week I’ve got a fun fall display for you (make your copy here) and I want to walk you through how to put it up, in hopes that this can be a big win for your readers heading into this season of reading. Soon you can add a banned books display, and a Hispanic Heritage Month Display, but for now, we’re focusing on putting student favorites at the center.
Let’s dive in.
Set up your Space
To get this display going, you need some space on a shelf and a wall. Grab some butcher paper to put up, and ask some of your artistic students to draw you a tree going up it. Give them markers or oil pastels or whatever you’ve got. This could also work on your whiteboard, with Expo markers.
Then grab the “Fall in Love with a Book” headers from the display and pop those up near the tree.
Let Students Recommend the Books
Next, pass out these book recommendation leaves. Yeah, you heard me right, book recommendation leaves! On their leaves, invite students to write a three sentence review of the best book they’ve read lately. The one they’d most recommend to classmates. If they have to go way back in their memory, that’s OK. On the handout, they’ll be guided in constructing this easy set of three sentences, starting with a hook, moving into a quick non-spoiler teaser, and wrapping up with a comparison to other books or movies to help ground the rec for other kids.
Scatter scissors, tape, and colored pencils, and once they’ve written their rec, added a little color (maybe), and cut it out, have students turn in their final book rec leaf to you.
Pull it Together: Add Screenshots and Books
Your next move is to make a little magic after school. Take the student recs and pull as many of the books as you can onto your shelf display, covers out. Especially focus on books that multiple students recommended. Tape some leaves onto the shelf near the books they highlight, and maybe others onto your tree or in a waterfall down the wall near your shelf. Then take a few minutes to pull screenshots of other popular book covers into a slide deck and print those too. You can tape the book covers up in the tree, scattered across the empty branches.
Center Student Recs Going Forward
Now that you’ve started building a culture of reading based on the books your students love the most, start mixing them into your reading P.R., along with new books you believe students will also love. Grab student favorites for First Chapter Friday, book tastings, and quick book talks before reading sessions.
(Make a copy of this sketchnote template here)
As students read more books and fall in love with new favorites, keep centering the books they love most in your displays, recommendation posters, digital shelves, and bookmarks. Invite them to share their recs in quick book talks or book talk podcasts you can play for the class, book trailer videos or book selfie snapshots.
