Literary Love Connections

I stayed after school on the last day of the semester to work on my first new bulletin board of the new semester. I wanted something that would be as beneficial to my year-long English kidlets as well as to my new crop of creative writers.(I also wanted something I could put together quickly since it was 5 o'clock on a Friday.) It was a rush job, but I'm pleased with how it turned out.

The quote Jenny sent me sent me the next morning comparing books to the T.A.R.D.I.S. was a very nice addition. Older sisters can really come in handy sometimes...

Moms also frequently come in handy.

For example, my mom recently passed along the idea for an "extreme booking" activity  her school librarian put together that very closely resembled speed dating. Having junior high kids "speed date" books? How could I resist?

So I took the idea to my school librarian, Dave.

You remember Dave, don't you?

He is the one who made it possible for Sherlock to wish me a happy birthday last year...

 ...and more recently turned me into an adjective.

So I told Dave that I wanted to give the kidlets a chance to step our if their literary comfort zones (Fantasy and dystopian novels are their current favorites). I spent a good five minutes making what I thought was a pretty compelling case, but it turns out all of the edu-speak was unnecessary: I had him at "I want the 7th graders to go speed dating with books."

He spent weeks looking for awesome books that weren't seeing the action they deserved, organized them into genres, assigned two genres to each library table, and assigned two books to each library seat.

After a conversation about not judging a book by its cover, the kids got to spend 90 seconds getting to know books that they might otherwise have ignored completely.

The afternoon resulted in some fun new literary love connections and some expanded "to read" lists, just as I had hoped.

But there was an unanticipated result too... while the kidlets were busy flirting with new genres, Dave and I compiled book-related pickup lines. Not all of them were fit to print in a family-friendly blog, but I thought it would be fun to end the post with a few that could be rated PG or lower. Enjoy!

We could make such a beautiful library together.

Do you know how I can contact Sherlock Holmes? Because I need to solve the mystery of how to win your heart.

You’re so hunky, you must be hiding a rapidly aging portrait somewhere in your attic.

Forget the dictionary, you're the one who gives my life meaning.

If you were a dementor, I would become a criminal just to get your kiss.

You must be the master of the EXPELLIARMUS spell, because your smile is disarming!

Yowza! You are hotter than Fahrenheit 451!

If you were a library book you would be overdue, because baby you are FINE!

Adventure was my favorite genre, but ever since I met you, I can't get romance off my mind.

Do you know what meeting you and my library book have in common? They're both seriously overdue.

You must be a library book, because I just can't stop checking you out.