A lot of our students know exactly what they want when they’re choosing books. They head straight to their favourite series or genre and choose something. Other kids are a little more indecisive, and need a lot of help in selecting a great book. We don’t always have time to give them individual attention, which means they leave the library empty handed. But those days are no more! Thanks to a great idea from the Seattle Public Library that Ms. Walker spotted on Pinterest boys who are not sure exactly what they want to read can choose a “mystery bag” to check out.
All the books in the mystery bags are great reads, but they might not be familiar to the students. Maybe they’re a bit older, or have an uninteresting cover, or maybe they just had the misfortune of being in the limelight of the latest Wimpy Kid installment.
In order to check out a mystery bag, a student makes two solemn promises:
- He won’t open the bag until he’s outside the library.
- He promises to read the first two chapters of the book. If he doesn’t like it after that, he’s allowed to return it.
So far, the mystery bags have been really popular! Ms Walker made up 10 bags this morning, and by the end of lunch, only one remains. One particularly voracious reader decided that Big Red wasn’t for him after reading the first two chapters (to be fair, Frankie is not really into Irish Setters and bear hunting). On the other hand, his classmate Joey was pretty impressed with the beginning of Word Nerd and can’t wait to finish it.
Long live the Mystery Bag!
Really cool idea