5 Ways to Know it’s Time to Upgrade Your Library System
March 26, 2026
8 Earth Day Books 2026
April 11, 20265 Ways to Fun Up Your Reading from Alexandria!
Fun Up & Go Book-Fan-Wild For Fabulous Book Adventures
1 - Covers Out, Connect to Activities - Serve Visual Eye Candy as a Main Course for PreK-2nd
Books on Full Display, Face Out
Fit your shelves with enough space to help those covers shine on. There's nothing better than being greeted at the door of a library with all those beautiful covers dancing just for you!
Earns Bonus Points
Call Number Books by Series, as Much as Possible
Kid-friendly your library! Share series and Call Number Your series. This does two things, three actually: 1) gifts kids the books they love, 2) gives them a "next book" to look forward to with an instant goal to rad the whole series, and 3) it streamlines shelving tasks. You can readily see where the book goes, no decimals, no ABC-ing necessary.
Makes a Library Kid-Friendly
Add Active Book & Curriculum Tie-Ins
Read a book to Littles and then let them get up and dance by sharing a Sight Word Dance-Movement activity that supports reading. Love these for Little.
Add A Word Dance for Fun
2 - Showcase Serialized Fiction to Nonfiction in Every Readers as a Main Course for 1st-2nd
Serialize for Easy ReShelving, Easy Selection
It's so much nicer to serialize your entire collection by publishing categories—and it helps kids select their books by the characters they love. You can see the selections by series here. Kids will gather and find their favorites and others will request by cover image. Warning: extremely reader contagious.
Streamlines & Boosts Reading
Share Every Readers from Fiction to Nonfiction
Kids will explore and read into both in series. A lot of nonfiction is built out as Series so kids will explore both without needing to move over to a nonfiction shelf. This is a great way to help new Kinder to 2nd grade readers to read at their reading levels.
Same Shelve for New Readers
Pull Your Leveled Books Out of Picture Book Area
Leveled books get lost in picture books. They do not get checked out, and then, they are not effective tools for schools looking to improve reading in lower grades. These books are made for new readers and to support early reading. The best way to celebrate them is to pull them out and showcase them together.
Lean into Learn-to-Read
3 - Collaborate on Cozy Drop-N-Read Spaces and Writing Games as Main Course for 3rd-5th
Lean into Cozy Spaces for Chapter Books
When we shifted our Chapters out of Fiction and highlighted them as their own category for our early chapter readers, it became something of a community gathering space to hang out and read in.
Gather the Good Reads
Use Peer Reviews to Amp up Circulation & Reading
Peer reviews are an undervalued library resource. As a Reading Teacher, I followed 100 students for a semester and was surprised, not surprised by the benefits of sharing book discussions, updates, and surprises learned while reading. Many students amazed themselves by how much more they read because a book discussed made them curious enough to read it for themselves. A few students, especially second language learners, actually improved his/her reading scores by two grades by simply reading for pleasure more.
Peer Reading Boosts Reading
Be Playful About Books, Reviews, Writing Activities
Have you ever taken the concept of a book and launched it as a writing prompt? It works so well to get kids curious about books. Take Hello, Universe, for example: You walk in the park and fall into a deep well. You have your hamster, backpack, but no cell phone. How will you get home? Feature any book this way. It's super fun to see the ideas students come up with. We do a "share three" for each book and this also gets kids excited about reading the title.
Lean into Learn-to-Read
4 - Get Graphic, Hit Hot Seats & Topics & Lean into Walk & Reads as a Main Course for 6th -8th
Get Graphic & Invite Full Creative Explorations
Graphic Novels were seen as a "less than" choice in one library I was in until we flipped the thinking by challenging students to harness their own Graphic Novel ideas with writings and illustrations that mattered to them. Students can work in groups and share their position on any topic using art and words. It's pretty powerful as students learn to 1) talk books, 2) collaborate, 3) designate, and 4) execute, and, most importantly, 5) have fun doing it.
Collaborative Graphic Panels
Do Chapter Challenges and Invite Hot Seat Reads
Best age meets full-on-fun reads here. Cover book and give teasers, share similar but different, showcase reads by author (or invite authors in). This is an age where play and reading and cozying up to chat-about-it just works. You can easily chose books to read in "Hot Seat" mode—if you have Kindle version, share overhead and invite volunteer readers by the page, or let them do a walk-and-read, which surprisingly helps your most reluctant readers who suddenly project like they are on stage and amp up inflection, and have fun reading well.
Invite Hot Seat or Walk & Reads
Play Games and Go All In to Hit Learning Targets
I spent a year doing Dear Editor Challenges after readings and merged Library and ELA goals to support what's being taught in the classroom. Another Library strength is to partner with Science and read books that tie into curriculum. We read All Thirteen, The Incredible Cave Rescue of the Thai Boy's Soccer Team when Science was discussing Karst Caves and really delved in to why this landscape further challenged rescuers.
Lean into Learn-to-Read
5 - Rock Out on Real Stories & Watch Books Motivate Readers as a Main Course for 6th -8th
Get Graphic, Go Manga & Present Real Stories
Kids today grew up online, on tech, and it shows. They grew up loving the image and word interplay that creates powerful storytelling. Readers tend to consume Graphics most and circulation numbers show it's a category rivaled only by, perhaps, real stories, freeverse, and illustrated novels.
Collaborative Graphic Panels
Full on Explorations, Creating Book Experiences
It's easy to gather the good stuff, the many gamified learning activities on Blooket, Kahoot!, Gimkit, and so many build your own graphic programs provide tons of fun ways to engage the stage of teens. You can gather your best links on a Bulletin Board and share it home, by grade levels, or districtwide (even password protect it)! See our One Book, One School Bulletin Example.
Create Book Experiences
Pull Real Story Books, & Feature Best of the Best
So often the middle grade Nonfiction stories that are based on real stories, like the Jake Andraka's own story:
