That One Great Book!

Have you ever had this happen to you?  You find a great new book that you love and want to share it at storytime, but you can’t find other really good complementary books to go with the theme.  Options:

1.  Use books that you don’t really love or that aren’t high quality just because they fit the theme

2.  Do an unthemed storytime

Options 2 is a completely acceptable.  I know some people who almost always do “unthemed” storytimes.  Option 1 however, is not acceptable.  The quality of books is essential to a successful storytime.  Please don’t use books you don’t love or that are not high quality for storytime just because they fit the theme!  And if you’re like me and want a theme this can make planning a little trickier!  Then I learned about option 3 from Rob Reid!

3. Make a loose connection and create a wider theme

For example, in his book Animal Shenanigans he suggests a theme called “The Animal Talent Show—Books about singing, dancing, and art”.

Recently I came across the book Hiccupotamus by Steve Smallman.  I feel in love with it and really wanted to use it.  But how?  I couldn’t find any other books that I loved about hiccups.  How could I build a theme around this book?

I started looking for books about other noises we make (a few I didn’t want to try to address!)  But I finally settled on “Hiccups, Burps, Sneezes and Snores” for my theme.  And I am very happy with it because I get to use Hiccupotamus as well as an all-time favorite Bear Snores On (not only is there snoring, but also burping and sneezing!)  I found Chu’s Day and Stop Snoring, Bernard that are wonderful books and fit nicely into the broader theme!  I am so excited to share this storytime with my families at my next storytime

Check out some of Rob Reid's books to get your creative juices flowing!