January Book Potato

I like to visit schools and have fun when students visit the library as well. One of my favorite activities to do with students is a game called Book Potato. I usually pick award nominated books off the shelf and put them on a cart. Normally, these are books that I have personally read. Yes, all of them. Students are usually impressed when I mention that. I pass out a list of the books/authors (already typed up) and pens/pencils to each student. Students are instructed to pick a book from the cart and sit in a circle (within reach of each other). At this point, I usually hear a lot of moans and groans and will overhear some not-so-nice comments such as, "This is stupid," or "Reading is boring." Comments like that drive me crazy and I usually think at this point that maybe this activity wasn't such a good idea. Students are to turn to the first page (they can read the covers later) and start reading when I say, "go." I usually time them for a minute and a half to two minutes, depending on the number of students and the amount of time we have. When I say, "stop," they are to find the book title on the list and circle "Y" for Yes, "N" for No, or "M" for Maybe indicating if this is a book they might be interested in reading later. They are then directed to pass the book to the left and we start again. This goes on until all of the books have made it back to the original student or we run out of time. In between reading while they are marking Y, N, or M, I mention slavery in the U.S. and that it was against the law for slaves to be taught to learn how to read or write. http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/slaveprohibit.html I also talk about how life-threatening it is for girls to walk to school today, in Afghanistan. http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/26/world/asia/cnnheroes-afghan-schoolgirls. When I'm not trying to get them to see that reading is a privilege and how it empowers people, I talk about the books that were not picked from the cart or I'll talk about some of the books going around the circle. At the end of the book potato activity, I am relieved to hear a lot of talking about the books and excitement in regards to being able to check them out. Of course, there are one or two who still don't want to read but they keep their mouths shut at this point.