2001 Teen Read Week celebrates the fun of reading
Contact: Linda Waddle
312-280-4391
ALA News Release
For Immediate Release
December 2001
2001 Teen Read Week celebrates the fun of reading
The Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA), a division of the American Library Association (ALA), has successfully completed another Teen Read Week. Many school and public libraries and bookstores celebrated the event October 14-20, and more than 1,400 participants registered on the Teen Read Week Web site. Many Teen Read Week activities used this year's theme, "Make Reading a Hobbit," as well as the general theme, "Read for the Fun of It." New Line Cinema, a Teen Read Week Sponsor and producer of the upcoming movie, Lord of The Rings, donated art for the graphics used to support this year's theme.
Some of the libraries participating in Teen Read Week were:
- Mayport Middle School, Atlantic Beach, Fla., had a bookmark contest for students to design a bookmark for their favorite fantasy book. The winning entry was made available to other students at the circulation desk. They also held a daily trivia quote contest. A quote from a popular fantasy book was read during the morning announcements and students had to identify the title of the book.
- Big Stone City School, S.D., had a "fun filled Teen Read Week," according to Janelle Kelly, school librarian. They held an essay contest on "The Reading Habit" and a "Hobbit" scavenger hunt in the library. "For the scavenger hunt I fixed up the library to look like a scene from the book ("The Hobbit") with cardboard trees, cobwebs, plastic spiders and bats to make it look like an eerie forest," Kelly said.
- Librarians at Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, celebrated Teen Read Week by having a core of librarians visit all 117 middle school classrooms in the city to talk about library services for teens, library offerings that might be of interest to teens and have students fill out a 'library interest' survey. "We have a super enthusiastic core of people to do our school visits," Erin Pierce, young adult coordinator, said. "It was an ambitious year for us."
- Johnny G. Economedes High School, Edinburg, Texas, held an uninterrupted 10-minute sustained reading time, achieving a cumulative total of 23,650 minutes reading. Approximately 1,898 students and 200 teachers and staff members participated. "Teen Read Week was a huge success!" Lolly Pena, librarian commented. "The kids enjoyed themselves greatly!" School officials are contacting the Guinness Book of World Records with documentation.
- W.C. Friday Middle School in Dallas, N.C., celebrated with a Reading Trivia Quiz consisting of three parts: Author/Title Match-up; Character Mis-Match; and Who Am I? They also held a poster contest. Students involved in the poster contest drew their favorite book or comic book characters. Winners of the events received gift certificates to be used at an upcoming book fair.
Some of the Teen Read Week sponsors also engaged in various activities: the World Wrestling Federation wrestlers Mighty Molly, The Hurricane and Stacy Keibler reading aloud at the Bloomingdale Branch Library in New York City;
Seventeen's Read Aloud program featured Shiri Appleby, star of Roswell, reading her favorite children's book at Whittier Library, Calif., while Meg Cabot, author of "The Princess Diaries" and Carolyn Mackler, author of "Love and Other Four Letter Words", read from their favorite books, as well as their own, at the Brooklyn Public Library in New York City; Barnes & Noble Bookstores offered activities ranging from a Teen Open Poetry and Mic Night and author signings to "Lord of The Rings" trivia events, readings, book discussions and read-a-thons. As friends of Teen Read Week, Scholastic Inc., gave out free books to each library that registered for Teen Read Week and Houghton Mifflin offered activity kits for
Lord of The Rings to the first 400 YALSA members to register for Teen Read Week, Reader's Guides and Teacher's Guides for new and renewing YALSA members, and copies of the Peter Sis edition of
The Hobbit along with posters.
Other 2001 Teen Read Week corporate sponsors included: Harcourt, Inc.; and Random House Inc. Other corporate Friends of Teen Read Week are Penguin Putnam Inc. Pamela Spencer Holley is an individual Friend of Teen Read Week.
Non-profit partners in this initiative include: American Association of School Administrators, American Booksellers Association, International Reading Association, National Association of Secondary School Principals, National Council of Teachers of English, National Education Association, National School Boards Association, Speak Up Press and
TeenInk.
Teen Read Week is a national literacy initiative aimed at teens, their parents, librarians, educators, booksellers and other concerned adults. It began in 1998 and is third week in October.
