Motivating Readers in the Middle Grades

"Most appropriate for those brand new to the middle school library, this title offers well-organized planning documents and a prescribed process for reading contests and promotional programs such as the traditional Battle of the Books and author visits. The book includes helpful handouts such as quizzes and answer sheets, reward coupons, and numerous book lists to use when planning and implementing the programs. . . . offers useful tools and helpful tips and handouts for those who need assistance with organizing motivational reading programs for this age group." --Colorado Association of Libraries

"Joan Collins is an experienced librarian and it shows! Her book is very practical and includes nearly everything needed for a middle school librarian to get students interested in reading. She begins by explaining how she ran a Battle of the Books competition with sixth graders including step-by-step directions, a list of suggested books, letters, handouts, and a timeline. She provides a list of 10 books with questions that can be used for weekly contests and the final battle. Other reading motivation programs are described with book recommendations, handouts, and a timeline. The final chapters detail how to have memorable author visits and ways to use technology to promote reading, complete with handouts. The book ends with annotated sections of recommended books divided into genres. This book is a true time-saver for librarians because everything is included to encourage middle grade students to read. On the other hand, it is versatile enough to easily customize the ideas to fit a particular school or group of students. Highly Recommended." --Library Media Connection

"Based on 30 years working as a teacher-librarian, Joan Collins has put together a two-part resource for teachers and librarians to motivate and keep middle school students reading. Part 1 is called Motivating the Reader and includes: Reading = Success (studies and research), Battle of the Books, Reading Playoffs (a tweaking of Battle of the Books), Booked Conversation (one-on-one discussions with a faculty member), Author Visits, and Technology (video booktalks). Part 2 is a Recommended Collection with Criteria for Selection and Additional Resources. Based on book discussions from her years of experience, Collins has selected book titles which students respond to positively, have literary merit, enjoy sustained popularity, and are at varied interest and reading levels. These are divided up by genre and include adventure, realistic fiction, science fiction and fantasy, historial fiction, mysteries, multicultural fiction, sports fiction, and biography and nonfiction. The front of the book has a table of figures (activity sheets for use with the various activities). In the back is an index of authors and titles of books listed in the text. This book is worth the price just for the annotated lists of books by genre. Since they are at different reading levels, they are not limited to just middle school students. Even though many are older titles, there were some that were not as well known or that have fallen by the wayside as newer titles are published. If you are planning on starting a Battle of the Books or want to do something different with book reports, this gives you step-by-step instructions. This will be most useful to library students or new librarians/teachers, but everyone can glean some new information from it. Recommended for library students, teachers, and librarians." --Catholic Library World