Expanding Our Reading Palates

Preparations have begun for our upcoming Hive book clubs with a surprise book tasting, where we were serving up lots of "tasty treats". Our book tasting event offered an opportunity to introduce students to a wide array of books from a variety of genres (and yes, we're leaving graphic novels behind). These carefully curated book selections would become the choices that students could consider for their book clubs. 

The Hive classroom was transformed into a café, with waiters (aka teachers) serving up trays of scrumptious books for patrons (aka students) at each table to sample. Patrons were able to move about the café to sample each of the books - reflecting on the book covers, book jacket summaries, vocabulary, and tasting the author's writing style, and character introductions by reading the first few pages of each book. They were later given time to reflect on their literary consumption and ranked their preferences according to their abilities and interest. The result was an individual list of just-right books for each student from which we used to unveil a widely anticipated book club announcement. The kids COULD NOT WAIT to start reading their new books.

This week's guest bloggers reflect on their book tasting experience. Enjoy!

What I enjoy about the book tasting experience is that I get to read and find books that I think I will like. I also enjoy having book group discussions because I like to share my ideas and my group members also help me better understand my book.   - @ZombieCat126

I enjoy book tastings because you get to state your own opinion about the book you are tasting. Book tasting helps me pick out the right books for me because I can rate each book based off of my own standards. Book tastings help me develop as a reader because if a book is too hard, I can just rate it as one and move on to another book that is at the reading level that I'm at so that I can improve my reading skills. I had an amazing time at our book tastings.    - @MaisyPaisy

One thing that I enjoyed about the book tasting was that you could go along at your own pace - you didn't have to rush and you didn't have to go super slow. Another thing that I liked was that it was very calm. I can't read when it's loud because it's very hard to get lost in a book when there is noise. One last reason I enjoyed this so much was that there were lots of books to choose from. You could start and end wherever you wanted.   - @TheScienceGeek

I enjoy the book tasting experience because I like trying out new books, especially ones I thought I would never want to read. Book tastings help me develop as a reader because I can go past my limit and read more than I thought I would.   - @PotatoMonitor

There's so much stuff that I love about our book tasting experience. We get to write down our top three favorite books so that we're put into book club groups with books that we will enjoy reading. The book club experience helps me develop as a reader, too because I get to try new types of books. I used to read a lot of graphic novels, but the book tasting gets me interested in reading other types of books. When we are preparing to meet with our book club groups, we have to think about our reading more. We write about memorable moments, make connections, and write "thick" questions (which are the best questions to use during our book club discussions).    - @FireDragon5

I enjoy sampling a variety of books. I especially love that we get to have a choice in what books we want to read for our book club groups. I usually have trouble finding a good book, but the book tasting helps me understand what books are right for me and ones that I will like. I really LOVE book tastings.   - @softballpiggy

Something that I enjoy about the book tasting experience is that you can test out books to see if you like them. Book tastings help you choose the right book because you have time to think about each book and decide if it's right for you and then rate it to see if it will be one of your top three favorites.   - @bob101

I enjoyed the book tastings because I was introduced to new types of books. When we had done the practice book tasting for graphic novels, I chose a book called Cardboard. Once I started reading it, I really didn't enjoy the first few pages as much as I thought I would, but then I started to like it. I would have never picked a book like Cardboard, so it was good to get a chance to read a new type of book.   -@puppyonline

I enjoy book tastings for many reasons. They help you choose the right book because you get to read the description and the first few pages to see if it intrigues you. I like... no, I LOVE book tastings because you can just relax and sample books. No one (friends, teachers, NOBODY) tells you what to read. You get to decide for yourself. I love book tastings!!   - @writingmachine

We really enjoyed the book tasting experience because we got to look at books we'd never touch. It makes us choose books out of our comfort zone. We liked that you got to read a little of each book and that it was calm and quiet. It helped us get more into novels.   - @ BobMcPickleson and @magician-of-ice-cream

What I enjoyed most about the book tastings was that you could test out all of the books. Plus, it helped when I could write down what I liked and didn't like about a book. Book tastings help you choose the right book. I will probably start doing this at home.   - @chickennugget

The book tasting experience and book clubs help me not only develop as a reader but also as a writer. Book clubs help me as a reader by making me think more about the book, infer more, and ask more questions. Before, I would just read a book and often enjoy it, but now because of book clubs, I understand the books I'm reading much better and have more to write about when I am preparing for my book club meeting.    - @WritingGod

Book tastings and book clubs are amazing. I like how we get to choose our own books and on Fridays, we meet together in groups and have a discussion about our reading for the week.   - @BuffBoiz

Something I enjoy about book tastings is that we get to try out a bunch of books and rate them. Book tastings help me find the right book for me and what books I would actually read instead of ones that I wouldn't like or finish.   - @sunflower

I enjoy reading and rating books during the book tasting because it helps me get some of my thoughts down and I also like reading random books that I haven't read yet.   - @Burt

The book tasting experience helps me choose the right book because it gives me a lot of choices and every book is different. Some books were not my favorite and other books spoke to me. I definitely liked some books more than others. I like that we had to move around and that we had nine books to choose from. This was a great experience.   - @soccerqueen6