Book Tasting Event with 3rd Graders

On Tuesday, May 30th I hosted our first ever Book Tasting event!

If you're not familiar with the idea of "Book Tasting" it is an opportunity for kids to spend a minute or two with a book that has been selected by a teacher or librarian.  After looking at/reading a page or two of the book the child is asked to rate it on how much they think they might want to read it.  Then they move to the next book, spending a minute or two with each book and so forth.  Ideally kids would "taste" at least 20 books and hopefully find at least one that they might enjoy reading.

I pulled in over a 100 books to look through that I thought would be appropriate for 3rd--going into 4th grade.  I tried to get books that would reach all reading levels and hopefully something that would reach each kind of reader.  After looking through the books I developed seven "categories" of books and put 8 books into each category.  I had to pull in some additional books to even it all out.  I was very pleased with the categories and the variety of books--topics, format, reading levels.  (See below for the categories and book list).

Each book got a "flag" of which category it was under so kids could more easily find the book in the menu.  I put the physical books in the same order as they were listed in the menu to also help the kids more readily find the book in the menu.

I had 50 chairs set up with around our meeting room; each chair had one of the books on the menu.  I knew the kids wouldn't get around to all the books, so I put books out that they would see at least three from each category.  All the books in each category in order, then the seven categories in order around the room.  [Animals:  The Big Move, Challenging:  The City of Ember, Graphic Novel:  CatStronauts, Great Author:  Tom Angleberger...]  This helped all of us more easily find the book title on the menu.

The menu was printed on 17x22 paper, folded twice.  Each page had a one category with the book titles listed.  Each title had a face scale for kids to fill in as to how much they think they might like to read the book.

The kids walking over from the nearby school for the Book Tasting!

Here I am explaining  to the kids the process before we head in for the Book Tasting.

The 3rd graders enjoying looking at the first set of books.

A book menu with two books "tasted".  One got a full smiley face (I really want to read this book!) and one smiley face (I think I would like to read this book)

We did about 20 "rounds"--so each student got to see at least two books from each category.  It took longer than I had hoped for each book.  Using tables would have helped, but we just didn't have the room!

My "last minute idea"--that I didn't get to do this year, but hopefully can do in the future, is to offer a free paperback book for any student to brings their Book Tasting Menu back during the summer.  I think our Friends would pay for some books from the Scholastic Warehouse Sale.

After our 20 or so rounds I gave the kids about 5 minutes to walk around the room and look at other books that were available.  Then they had about 10 minutes to browse the library before heading back to school.

A few students enjoying Garfield after the book tasting.

Book Tasting Menu

Animals
The Big Move (Commander in Cheese) / Leavitt
Clover's Luck (Magical Animal Adoption Agency) / George
The Mouse and the Motorcycle / Cleary
A Nest for Celeste / Cole
Obi: Gerbil on the Loose / Delaney
Rescue on the Oregon Trail (Ranger in Time) / Messner
Sasquatch Escape (Imaginary Veterinary) / Selfors
The World According to Humphrey / Birney

Challenging (200+ pages)
The City of Ember / DuPrau
Escape from Mr. Lemoncello's Library / Grabenstein
Familiars / Epstein
Hercufleas / Gayton
Legendtopia: The Battle for Urth / Bacon
Loser / Spinelli
The Magic Thief / Prineas
The Terrible Two / Barnett & John

Graphic Novels
CatStronauts: Mission Moon / Brockington
The Creepy Case Files of Margo Maloo / Weing
El Deafo / Bell
The Great Pet Escape / Jamieson
HiLo: The Boy Who Crashed to Earth / Winick
King of Kazoo / Feuti
Little Dee and Penguin / Baldwin
Varmints / Hirsch

Great Authors
Tom Angleberger -- Inspector Flytrap
Judy Blume -- Tales of the 4th Grade Nothing
Beverly Cleary -- Ramona the Pest
Andrew Clements -- Frindle
Dan Gutman -- Babe & Me
Gordon Korman -- Swindle
Lois Lowry -- Number the Stars
E. B. White -- Charlotte's Web

Informational
National Geographic Kids Alanac 2017
Can You Survive the Jungle? / Doeden
Guinness World Records: Incredible Animals
It Can't Be True 2 / DK
Kid President's Guide to Being Awesome / Montague & Novak
Orangutan Orphanage / Eszterhas
Some Writer! The Story of E. B. White / Sweet
Together Forever / Quattlebaum

Pairings--Books + Audio Visual
Because of Winn-Dixie (+DVD) / DiCamillo
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (+Playaway) / Dahl
The Cricket in Times Square (+CD) / Selden
The Indian in the Cupboard (+DVD) / Banks
James and the Giant Peach (+DVD) / Dahl
Masterpiece (+CD) / Broach
The One and Only Ivan (+picture book--Ivan: The Remarkable True Story of the Shopping Mall Gorilla / Applegate
Stubby the War Dog (+CD) / Bausum

Series
39 Clues / various
43 Old Cemetery Road / Klise
Billy Sure: Kid Entrepreneur / Sharpe
Blast to the Past / Deutsch
Boxcar Children / Warner
Geronimo Stilton / Stilton
I Survived / Tarshis
Myth-O-Mania / McMullan