Old Books

Greetings!
If you library is anything like mine, you have a bunch of old books. Most of them look old and boring, too.

Question: So what do you do with old books?

Answer: Get them off the shelves and discard them. They aren’t being checked out anyway. They are taking up valuable real estate.

Question: BUT – what if the story is great or the book is an important one that needs to stay in the library? What can you do to promote these books?

Answer: I can think of three ways to promote old books in your classroom or library.

1. Book talk the books. Choose exciting passages and read bits of the book to the class and deliberately leave off at an exciting part. Then put the book out for students to check out.

2. Put a number of old (ugly?) books on a special display shelf or table along with a sign to promote them. Sample ideas for signs might be “Lonely Books” “Don’t Judge a Book by its Cover”, etc. Ask students to read a book and let you know if the story is good enough for the book to be kept in the library. Most students are willing to read a book to help out in this way.

3. If a book is a great story, just ugly, do your best to replace the copy with a new copy. If you cannot get a new copy, but really want to keep the book, have students who are artistic make nice book jackets for these books. Another idea is to download a nice cover and put it on a book jacket. Either cover these book jackets with a plastic cover or laminate them and tape them to the book.

Just because a book is old does not mean it should be discarded. But just because it is on your shelves, does not mean it should be kept. Use some common sense and keep what is important to your school and curriculum.

Have a great week!
Audrey