Book Tasting for 4th - 6th Graders

What is a book tasting?

This is an event to expand a reader's palate. Guests will be able to "taste" or sample 4 - 5 books to find their next great read and maybe a book or two that they thought they'd never pick up.

What I did to prepare

When I first came across this idea, I was super excited. I went straight to Canva where I created a book tasting menu that was similar to a few examples I had seen. I wanted to have a different genre featured at each table so I made signs that reflected this. I purchased some tall table stands so they could easily be seen. I did some more research to flesh out my ideas and put a date in the public calendar. 

I chose to do my first event with 6 different genres. I picked biography, realistic fiction, fantasy, sci-fi, dystopian, and adventure. I felt that these would capture a wide range of kids' interests. The position that I recently filled at my library had been vacant for almost a year at this point so I didn't have a frame of reference for how many people would attend my event. I wanted to prepare for the worst in both directions so I went with a larger plan. 

The plan

My plan was to explain how to use the menu, sample a book, and tell everyone that they would have 7 minutes to look at each book before we rotated to another table. I imagined the event being quite time-sensitive since it was only an hour long and everyone needed to move at least 5 times to fill out their menu. 

The event

Each table had 4 place settings, about 6 books, menus, pencils, and table markers. I ended up explaining the menus to each group as they walked in since I had some show up early and others came in late. Most of the caregivers decided to stay to look at the books with their kids and that ended up being great. Since everyone came in at different times, I decided to throw out the 7 minute rule since each unit moved to other tables as they finished a book. This made the event feel calm when I expected it to be more go, go, go! I had a decent turnout of kids and caregivers everyone told me they had a good time. Some even requested that we do this for different age groups.

Takeaway

Everyone went at their own pace instead of following a timer. 6 tables were too many so I'll only use 4 next time. Many of the people who came did not know what biographies were. Then when I explained them, they were very uninterested. I plan on changing this table to be just non-fiction books and adding some animal book so they will find in more exciting. Lastly, I had some kids that were younger than 4th grade come in. I welcomed them to stay and participate however, they had a harder time filling out the menu. I plan to make it simpler for when I do this event for younger kids.