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For more great programming ideas or to share your own, visit the Teen Read Week Wiki!
Set up a reading tournament this summer or in the month leading up to Teen Read Week. Have teens choose their favorite books that will help them read beyond reality, and have them vote each week for a winner of each match up. Find books using the downloadable recommended reading pamphlet from ALA Graphics or the Teens' Top Ten nominations.
Encourage teens to create maps or models of their favorite fictional worlds: have them create a map of Hogwarts and its vicinity, Middle Earth, Panem, or the Seven Kingdoms from Graceling.
Start a teen volunteer program and show teens how they can change their world and the world of others. Work with a local charity to host a book, food, or toy drive. Recruit teens to volunteer at the library and to help read to younger kids at storytime. Create booklists and displays using books nominated for the 2010 Popular Paperbacks theme Change Your World. Do your own version of Operation Teen Book Drop. Find tips on community service and teens on the YALSA Wiki.
Go beyond reality through gaming! Host a gaming event at your library:
Sponsor a contest asking teens to read books that take place outside of our reality and write a paragraph about why that reality would be a better or worse place to live than our own. Start a fan fiction writing group for any popular sci-fi or fantasy TV shows and movies; you can create a contest out of the group or use it as an opportunity to teach them about copyright and fair use. Or have a themed contest for all your teens — ask them to write a short story, create artwork, or write an essay about what the world will be like in 2109. Encourage teens’ creativity by hosting a class on video game design.
Invite an actor or actress from a local theater troupe to talk about their work, what it’s like to play different people all the time. Have them talk about how important reading is to their profession. Create a display or booklist books from the 2009 Popular Paperbacks themed list, Fame & Fortune.
Plan a film festival for your teens! Try a book vs. movie theme, with teens comparing them. Feature movies made from popular fantasy books (The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Harry Potter) or books that have won awards or been on YALSA lists (Persepolis, Coraline, Inkheart). Check the YALSA Booklists & Awards page for more ideas. Have parents sign permission slips to approve PG or PG-13 rated flicks first. Be sure to obtain a Public Performance License before showing any movies at the library. Looking for more ideas? Check the Fabulous Films for Young Adults lists.
Teens create fashions for characters from their favorite sci-fi, fantasy, or alternate reality books such as Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book, Derek Landy’s Skullduggery Pleasant, Shannon Hale’s Book of a Thousand Days, Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game (just to name a few) using whatever materials you have handy. (You can find titles using YALSA Booklists & Awards page.)They can just design and draw, create three-dimensional mock-ups for sock puppets, or go whole hog and sew themselves a wearable masterpiece! Hang their work in the library, have an actual fashion show, or just let them take their creations home with them
Provide writing materials and have teens bring iPods or mp3 players to the library (If your library has mp3 players, use them!). Hand out character biographies or have teens choose their favorite characters from their favorite sci-fi, fantasy, alternate reality books. Then, using the character as the protagonist, teens put their entire music catalog on shuffle, and start the process of creating poetry using only the first lines of each song as they cycle through their playlists. This can be a limited number of lines or not. The creativity comes in putting those random song lyrics together in a poem that describes something the character saw, felt, or thought.
The Teens’ Top Ten nominations come out on Support Teen Literature Day (April 16 this year). Encourage teens to read the nominees, hosting weekly discussion groups where teens give their opinions and try to persuade others to vote for their choices. Teens will be well informed when they vote in the online Teens’ Top Ten poll between Aug. 24 and Sept. 18! Winners will be announced during Teen Read week.
Hold an event in Teen Second Life! You can host an author visit, a competition, a college fair, or anything else. Hold a scavenger hunt or host a class (see the Eye4You Alliance’s Science Friday as an example). Teens may also be interested in machinima, which is making movies in 3D virtual worlds. Teens can use Teen Second Life or games like The Sims to write, edit and make their own movies. Learn how to get started with the Machinima FAQ. The possibilities are endless.
Have teens create their own animation. To get started with animation, download Scratch, free software developed by MIT. The software allows teens to create animations, interactive stories, music, and more and to share them on the web. If it's possible, invite someone who works in animation (check with an ad agency or see if a web designer could demonstrate Flashanimation) to talk to teens about what they do.