For the month of March, the Oak Park LMC decided to try something new to get students excited about reading. With all the hype of the March Madness basketball tournament and it’s accompanying popular bracket game, the librarians got creative and created their own type of bracket.

Librarian, Angie Wiegers sent out weekly emails informing the students on how to participate. They were instructed to go to the library’s website and the voting would be on the front page. In the voting process, students were taken through several scenarios where they would have to choose their favorite book out of two different options. It started with 16, then down to 8, then to 4, and now it’s the championship with only two books left. The process was done bracket style with the winner between each pair progressing to the next round. The two favorite books in the championship are Hunger Games and Forrest Gump. Go Forrest Gump!

In an interview with Mrs. Stancil, the librarian answered a few questions about the new and innovative activity.

1. Who came up with the idea? How?
2. Mrs. Wiegers, she had done it previously at a different school
3. How were the first 16 books chosen?
4. Went into card catalog and found most checked out books, then matched similar genres and main ideas together
5. About how many students vote in each round?
6. Around 200 students have been participating

This sure was a clever way to mix student’s excitement about March Madness in with reading books. I made sure to cast my vote in each round! Did you? Which did you want to win?