The Power of Student Book Reviews

Having students writing book reviews is a great way to get them thinking more about what they read. It also helps reach multitudes of other students as they always want to know what their friends are reading.

The problem is, students don't have a lot of time or interest (for the most part) in writing lengthy reviews. Being honest, I don't like reading long reviews either, I want to know what it's about and if it's any good in as few words as possible. 

That's why we've adopted the bookstore format of writing short reviews on index cards and displaying them around the library. 

We have an online reward system called Vivos which we give students who do extra activities such as this. This helps as an incentive, I also use free books as a prize for students who write the most reviews and any student who becomes a Library Assistant gets treated to a pizza party three times a year which also helps.

Having reviews written by students on display also reinforces the idea that it is a space that belongs to them. 

This year, I've taken the book review idea one step further and created a YA book review web site. At the moment, it only has reviews written by me on it but I am going to be adding guest reviews written by students on it as well. 

My hope is that over time we will amass a huge collection of book reviews that students can access to assist them in choosing the perfect book for them. Click the image below to access the site, if you're a student and would like to write a review don't hesitate to see me in the Library!