It's a blast!

Start your school year with a blast.  A book blast, that is!  A book blast is simply a campaign to get a book in the hands of every student in your school in a short time.

Send a quick email to the teachers at your school that you have a goal for every student (and teacher!) to have a book by the end of the first week of school.  Too ambitious?  Huge campus?  Maybe you need to tack on a few more days, but if you set the deadline too far out, the sense of urgency is gone, and so is half the fun.

Ask teachers to bring their classes to the library for only 10-15 minutes.  You can warmly greet the students, mingle around, and help with reader's advisory.  No need to set them down for booktalks or a beginning of the year speech about your circulation policies.  It's a book blast!  Simply meet students, help them find a great book, get them checked out and back to class.

If teachers aren't able to bring whole classes, encourage them to send small groups or individuals.  Take a cart of books and a laptop out of the library and bring books to kids!

With you goal of every student quickly jumping in to reading, the first of the year will be a blast!