The most important function of the Georgia Peach Award for Teen Readers is to get our teens excited about reading. Our committee tries to gather information on ways people promote our nominated titles, as well as promote reading in general. We share this information on our website as well as when we do presentations. There is nothing more fun than when a student comes up to me and says they finished the last book I recommended to them, they loved it, and ask for another title. I decided that I needed help spreading the word about these books so my media center started a contemporary literature book club for the staff of our school. The wonderful thing is I was able to get this class approved for a PLU. The response was overwhelming and I had teachers from every department, APs, clerks and nutrition staff all reading books that our students would be interested in. For example, we read and discussed A Thousand Splendid Suns, Book Thief, and Glass Castle just to name a few. We would meet from 2:30 – 4:00, once a month. These book club members were so excited about the books we read that they started talking about them with the students and we cannot keep them on the shelf.
If you have other suggestions for promoting your book titles – please share them with us.
Amy Golemme
Georgia Peach Committee, Chair
