Readers for Life

James Patterson, the prolific author of thrillers and mysteries for adults as well as several series for young adults, has created a Web site "dedicated to making kids readers for life." Called Read Kiddo Read, it is packed with recommended reading lists, reading guides, a community forum, a newsletter, and much more. Take a look; there is a lot there!

Mr. Patterson is a big supporter of libraries. At the recent AASL Conference in North Carolina, he told the crowd,

It’s time for librarians to start making a lot more noise. School libraries are not a luxury, they are a necessity.

You can read more about his speech here.

Book Trailers

We all know about movie trailers--those few minute peeks at upcoming attractions. This catch- their-interest technique is the latest way to promote books. Book trailers use multimedia to capture readers' interest with a preview of characters, plot, and action. Publishers, teachers, students, and authors are all making trailers to promote new books or old favorites. This is a way for students to create book reports or to show their fellow students their favorite books. Equipment is minimal, students engage with the book and each other, and the trailers encourage reading for pleasure.

Here are some resources:

• How to make a book trailer
• Bookscreening aggregates a collection of book trailers for all types of books and readers, including more than 100 for youth
• Fiction Notes lists many book trailer resources
• Digital Book Talk is an award-winning site with resources for making book trailers and finished trailers for books of interest to K-12 readers.

Let us know if you try this out. We'd love to see your book trailers.

Resource for Readers

The Children's Series Binder wiki

seeks to create a comprehensive listing of series books for children to help librarians, teachers, parents, and kids find the chronological and publication order of series books.

Children's Series Binder is organized by series title and genre, and the entire wiki is searchable by keyword. Series titles are listed in alphabetical order in the Table of Contents. You can also browse the Category Link List, which is a list of all the genres, authors, and categories of books in the Children's Series Binder. This could be a useful link from a library media center page.

Everyone is welcome as a contributor; email the wiki owner for user ID and password. seriesbinder@gmail.com

rant/This is an aside, but ... The Series Binder is created by the Webster Public Library Children's staff. Where is Webster, you ask? Well, it took me five clicks deeper and deeper into the site and it could have been more if I hadn't gotten lucky to find it is Webster NY. I think every Web site should have at least its city and state on the front page.

Even if you assume only your neighbors and other locals are using your library/school/business/institution/other Web site, it is vital to put your location on the front page! How else will they know that this is the Webster Public Library they are looking for? It's the World Wide Web, after all--people find your site from all over the Web and world. I can't tell you the number of times I have looked at a newspaper or TV Web site and it is identified only as the Springfield Gazette or KSRE with no other identification. I can name a half a dozen Springfields without trying very hard. So, when students or you are putting content on the Web, tell us where you are. Make it a best practice. /end of rant