{"id":21774,"date":"2017-06-06T08:00:40","date_gmt":"2017-06-06T12:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/?p=21774"},"modified":"2017-06-06T08:00:40","modified_gmt":"2017-06-06T12:00:40","slug":"summer-reading-challenge-book-bingo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/?p=21774","title":{"rendered":"Summer Reading Challenge: Book Bingo!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"We at the Flying Pig are a pragmatic crew. We hope to be creative and energetic, but we also know our limits. This translates into a healthy skepticism for new programs; we know they need to be easy to implement, maintain, and close out.
\nOne of the reasons Candlewick’s\u00a0Where’s Waldo?<\/em>\u00a0annual summer contest<\/a> \u2014 in which bookstores engage local retailers in a fun competition that brings customers into all of our stores looking for the hidden Waldo figurine \u2014 is that they make it REALLY easy for us, with instructions, all the materials we need, and even some prizes to give away.
\nWhen Linda Devlin of Linda’s Story Time<\/a> bookstore in Monroe, Ct., wrote to the New England Children’s Booksellers Association listserv about her Summer Reading Challenge,\u00a0I was intrigued. She has fun ideas to make a game out of keeping\u00a0kids reading great books over the summer, and trying books\u00a0outside their usual comfort zones. So tonight, I was noodling around with a simple idea for our own summer reading challenge, and here’s what I came up with:
\n
\n\"\"
\n 
\nI found a bingo card maker online (myfreebingocards.com) and came up with some ideas for\u00a0third-, fourth- and fifth-grade readers. (By the way, the template I chose resembles\u00a0the Where’s Waldo? poster, but that’s just a stripey\u00a0coincidence. MyFreeBingoCards.com only has about eight template styles, and this is by far the snazziest \u2014 plus, it’s summery with the July 4\u00a0vibe.)
\nThe\u00a0categories are pretty broad and plain, but\u00a0I hope they give kids enough of the kinds of books\u00a0they already love, while nudging them to try some books they might not gravitate to.\u00a0When kids get a Bingo of three books, they can choose from a box of fun prizes we have left over from publisher promos:\u00a0silly pencils, tattoos, stickers, etc. When they get\u00a0two Bingos, they can choose an advance reading copy from our coveted ARC bookshelf in the back. And if they fill the whole card? They get to come to an end-of-summer book party!
\nI’ll be working on a set for middle-graders with a more unusual set of challenges.\u00a0All ideas welcome.
\nIn the meantime, thanks, Linda, for sparking an idea!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A summer reading game – with prizes – for kids.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21774","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21774","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21774"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21774\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}