[LM_NET] SHARE: One book, one school

[Carrie Green <carriergreen@HOTMAIL.COM>]

I often see posts asking for "One Book, One School" ideas, and so I had to 
share our success last night.  We've been doing this for four years now, and 
model it after the "One Book, One Philadelphia" program. We call our program 
"Wissahickon Reads".  Because we are a k-8 school, sometimes we have to 
choose more than one book on the same theme to appeal to all our age groups. 
  This event's theme was mysteries, and we had 3 titles students could 
choose from:
Cam Jansen and the Mystery of the Missing Dinosaur Bones by David Adler
The Case of the Missing Cutthroats (an environmental mystery) by Jean 
Craighead George
The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin

We publicized the event by creating a mystery.  Usually, to advertise 
Wissahickon Reads, we have a teacher in a gorilla costume reading the book 
by the front door each morning (it's a weird tradition, but we are a weird 
school...)  So this time, we had the gorilla reading the book for 3 mornings 
in a row, and then on the fourth day he was GONE with banana peels scattered 
around.  Students solved puzzles with their class each week in order to 
receive a clue eliminating various "suspects" (pre-chosen staff members with 
their pictures on a poster to make it easier).  Students had to come to the 
evening event to figure out who stole the gorilla.

For the evening event, students got a "passport" at the door.  They could 
choose any station they wanted to go to, with only one a required station: 
literature circles.  The other stations were a Crime Lab (analyzing fibers, 
footprints, ink, etc), Spy Disguises, Computer Lab (a mystery webquest), 
Animal Tracking (we're an environmental school), and puzzles.

We gathered at the end of the evening to reveal our "gorilla napper".  It 
was our Dean of Students, who accidently "stole" the gorilla when the 
gorilla followed him home one day.  It was a VERY fun event, we had great 
attendance, and celebrated reading school-wide.

Just thought I'd share!  Hope it helps for those of you planning such events 
in the future.
~Carrie

Carrie Higgins, Library Media Specialist
Wissahickon Charter School
Philadelphia, PA

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