What Adrienne Thinks About That

This makes sense to me, Adrienne. When I was a kid I was never into reading for prizes, but I would certainly have put my name in a box to potentially win a free book. When I was 10 or older I would probably have biked to the library myself every day to put my name in the box, if the books up for grabs looked interesting to me. Thanks for taking the time to write this up.

AMEN, sister. I love kids, I love summer, and I love kids reading during summer, but I harbor a deep, burning hatred for SRPs. They are such a pain, and it feels like every year we have to top what we did the year before, which is no way to live.

We did something similar to your To The Left SRP this year, and I think it was the best SRP I've participated in. I am going to try to convince my colleagues to continue to strip down and refocus our approach this year, too.

Hey Adrienne,

Thanks for sharing your summer reading program! I read the blog frequently to get ideas for programs (and just to see what other librarians out there are thinking) and I think this is one of the happiest, most wonderful ideas I've seen in a while. For the past two summers, I have dreamed of getting rid of our incentive-based summer reading program. I hate prizes! It limits the number of children we can accept into the program and it does nothing but clutter up parents' houses! I just might try it in 2008...so I may have a few more questions. Thanks for this!

Jen, I find it kind of ironic that I run many programs that even I, huge reader that I was, would not have participated in as a child. I did nothing that involved talking to adults I didn't know. I would have felt okay putting a slip in a box, though.

Sophie, WOOT! I don't like that whole having-to-top-last-year thing, either. Too much pressure.

Welcome, Kate! If I can answer any questions, ask away, anytime. :)

Adrienne,

As usual, you're blazing a trail and it's a good one. It seems I now have responsibility for the summer reading system grants for 2008 and I'm planning to ask you and your colleagues if there's anything else we can use the money for *besides* incentives. I'd love to be able to take that money and buy a whole boatload of books to be given away during the summer.

Patty, Obviously, I think that's a great idea. :)

What I like about the program is that it separates reading from the prizes. I don't have problems with the idea of prizes (aside from chincy, cheap plastic ones which I despise)- I kind of like the idea of the summer as a big summer-long party where you can go to cool programs and get/win cool stuff like books and pencils and stickers and things IN ADDITION TO ALL THE GREAT STUFF THAT'S ALREADY AT THE LIBRARY! I love that the program rewards coming to the library instead of reading and leaves kids to put off or embrace reading as they so desire.

Once again, you've stunned me with your genius. You've come up with the most perfectly crystallized, essential version of the summer reading program. I am going to pass this post on to every children's librarian I know. Genius, I tell you!

Adrienne, I am so glad you posted this and that I read it. I am not a public librarian, but the incentive programs in school and public libraries make me kreeeeeeeazy. I just. don't. get. it. They make reading seem like this onerous task (though I agree with you that they might work for specific kids in specific situations. I was the librarian at a school for the deaf, where very smart seniors were reading at a 3rd grade level, because, essentially, English was a second language for them, and in cases like that, I can maybe see the purpose of such programs). Many, many kudos to you for doing this, for scaling down, for doing something you believe in. I mean, really, I wish to God you were my local public librarian. Not only do the patrons win, but the program sounds as if it was more headache-free for you all to run. Win-win.

I love what Scieszka had to say about relaxing-about-reading in our interview with him (and which he's said lots of places elsewhere). This seems to me to be in the spirit of that. Wahoo!

P.S. I, for one, like the Adrienne’s Unpopular Library-Related Opinions series.

Total agreement here. I'm a big believer in Alfie Kohn's Punished By Rewards. I don't like bribing my kids to read and I don't like making that association for them at ALL.

Speaking as a teen services librarian, we love letting our Teen Advisory Board pick out our summer reading prizes, and watching the other teens' faces light up when they get something cool for reading. But, you know, that's just us. :)

p.s. Maybe I'm secretly ordering those awesome prizes for myself? Shhh...don't tell anyone....

Jason, Exactly.

Eisha, If only my genius extended to other areas, like plumbing and power tools.

Jules, Yes, Jon Scieszka really knows his stuff when it comes to kids and reading. I'm always nodding my head when I hear him speak or read interviews with him. And I am glad to know someone's enjoying my unpopular opinions. No one at work has egged my office or anything yet, but they are very likely ignoring me (or just used to me). ;)

Maggi, I'm glad you mentioned Punished by Rewards. That book helped me find words for and understand a lot of the things I was feeling and observing about kids and how to work with them.

Olivia, Well, you know, everyone has to find the thing that works for their goals and situation. :) There are just so many things to consider, and a lot of different ways to run just about anything in a library (which is one of the many reasons libraries are great places to work, IMHO).

We have two major library systems in my part of the country. One has a lot of money for big prizes (i.e. pizza, ice-cream, etc.) and one has... not so much money, and so the prizes are new paperback books. I'm a fan of the latter.

Great, great post.

I've had discussions with other YA librarians in my system about what wasn't working with our SRP and how we could make it better (without having to spend more), so thank you for writing so thoughtfully about what worked for you and why.

I love the simplicity of your revamped SRP. And I agree with Jen Robinson. I never ever signed up for an SRP when I was a kid because I felt like I didn't have to be rewarded for reading. It was a form of snobbery, I guess, like, "Oh, I'm going to read anyway, so let the kids who wouldn't otherwise read get the prizes. I don't need them to read." I think I see this in some of my teens now. In particular, the heavy readers will not sign up for summer reading. I ask once, they decline, I don't ask again until the next year's SRP because I don't want to make it seem like I'm pressuring them, and the next year, they still don't sign up even though I constantly see them checking out stacks of books. But entering a drawing to win a book, without having to sign up for a formal program? I would've begged my parents to take me to the library as often as possible. Especially if the drawings continued, as yours are. And I think some, if not all, of my not-interested-in-SRP teens would be interested in this version of it, as well. Which may or may not solve the problem of attracting teens who do need the incentives to come to the library, but it's a place to start, something I'd feel more comfortable supporting, and you've shown that it can work. So thanks again.

I'm so glad to get some positive reinforcement on this. :) I have to say, though, the staff at WPL was very behind me on this, which I think is also a big part of what made it work.

Adrienne,
Thanks for sharing. You inspired me to make a post about my unorthodox summer program for teens. Of course, I linked to you. Thanks again.

I love it. Your program generates added excitement for visiting the library without resorting to bribery. My 5 year old already feels jaded about prize based SRP at our library. Last year she lost her card early on and didn't want to replace it. She hated attempting to keep track and I wasn't about to start reminding her at the end of every reading session, "go color in your square." The only prize she was ever interested in was the book coupon at the end and the name plate you get to put in your favorite library book (okay that part is cool and she missed out by chucking the program last summer). Hmmm.... how do I convince my library to do this?

I have come back almost one year later to say I have not forgotten this post. It's on my mind right now as the public library I use is ramping up the summer reading program. I think the librarians work so hard and are great, but ...ERGH! Why can't everyone do THIS?

If I didn't think they'd find me an obnoxious patron (who-is-also-a-librarian) for suggesting they try something different, I'd show them this. I dream of it.

Thanks for the props, Jules! I've gotten several emails from librarians over the last year who have decided to go simple and do something like what we've done at WPL, which has been really nice to hear. Mostly I go about my business with confidence, but when I was planning this whole thing, I did have my moments of doubt. I don't even think about it anymore, though. As far as I'm concerned, we can do our summers this way forever.

Of course, this summer, for something special, we're going to have cocoons and butterflies at our children's reference desk. Won't that be cool? I'm so excited about it. I'm sure I'll be posting photos.

were any of the kids who entered the drawing every week, multiple times disappointed if they never won a book? i suppose that would be my fear with a program like this.

one of the libraries i worked at had a great "hook" for SRP. it was a "wheel of prizes" sort of like the Wheel of Fortune, but vertical. Kids got to spin the wheel once for every 5 books they read. Each letter on the wheel corresponded to a prize bucket filled with small prizes (candy, pencils, bookmarks, etc.) and kids could spin as many times as they wanted to all summer long. they didn't seem to care much what was in the buckets (and i would have loved to have a budget big enough to have books be one of the prizes)--it was the spinning that they enjoyed. i get your arguments about reading incentives and how they shouldn't be made more important than the reading, but not winning drawings when i was a kid was always a big disappointment for me.

We do share your concern about kids who wind up being disappointed. We do a few things to try to counteract this. We don't make a big deal about the drawings, which means we don't do them publicly and don't post the winners (we just call them and tell them to come pick up their books). We also do LOTS of drawings and give out multiple copies of each book. Last year, we did three copies of each book. This year, we're shifting to four. We also do the drawings year-round, so if you don't win the current drawing, there is always another one to enter. I hope this keeps the hope alive. :) I also hope this encourages year-round reading and library visits.

We really do always have a lot of other exciting things going on, and I think that's been essential to our success--things like activity sheets, take and make crafts, bulletin boards kids can add to, and programs, programs, programs. We love doing programs. :)

In the couple of High School libraries I have been involved with we have always tried to either give books or book vouchers as the major prizes in any given promotion (with the book vouchers tending to be the most coveted as they represent the promise of choice). The only other kind of prize I can think of that we have offered has been of the edible variety in the form of chocolate frogs or some other small lolly as a small kind of prize. I think that giving books as prizes (regardless of the individual program really) always encourages kids to value reading because it reinforces the idea that books are valuable (as they are the coveted prizes). Generally the kinds of things we give prizes for are quizzes or voting in West Australian Young Readers Book Awards.

I'm adding that to my list of good reasons to visit Australia. :)