When I discovered Star Wars Reads Day a few months ago I knew I had to do something at the library. I relish any opportunity I get to celebrate Star Wars in my “real life”, and celebrating Star Wars at my day job is a dream come true. I had so much fun interacting with the kids (and their parents) and sharing my love for Star Wars with them via something I’m really passionate about…reading! Here are some of the activities I organized with pictures of how everything looked! So, what is Star Wars Reads Day? Basically it an annual event celebrated at Libraries and Book Stores to celebrate Star Wars literature. It’s been going on for a few years now, but I only heard about it recently when it was posted on StarWars.com. The event is pretty awesome and TONS of libraries participate in it. Librarians dress up, plan cool activities, do crafts, and have tons of Star Wars book available to check out. Some bigger libraries will even get Authors of Star Wars books to come in to answer questions and sign books. My library is pretty small so we just had a table set up with some activities for the kids and I had done my display earlier in the week. The display was really fun to do because it meant I got to bring in some of my personal collection for the case. The Death Star Planetarium was (and always is) a big hit when I show it off, and I use my Stormtrooper Cookie jar so often during the year for random things that it’s starting to get kind of dirty. I also brought in the Star Wars Encyclopdia which the kids could look through, and probably my FAVORITE non-fiction Star Wars Book, The Star Wars Scrapbook by Stephen Sansweet. I also pulled all the Star Wars books that we had in my library and ordered a few more from the other libraries in our network to display. I wanted to make sure to have a nice spread of Adult, Young Adult, and Children’s books so everyone who came could find something at their reading level. That recommended by Mae book? Heir to the Empire…obviously. I love this banner I found from Ms. O Reads books. (http://www.msoreadsbooks.com/2013/07/jumping-on-bandwagon-fangirl-bunting.html) There was a ton of promotional materials that were free to use as well. I got some bookmarks from DK Publishing and a BB-8 cardstock punch outs from Studio Fun. There were also tons of quizzes, coloring pages, and activity sheets to keep the kids occupied. The first thing I had the kids do was make name tags. They did a short quiz to see if they were a Jedi or a Sith because I made two different Republic or Empire name tags. Then we used a Star Wars name Generator to figure out their Star Wars name. Mine is Maer’t Alnor. All the names actually sounded pretty Star Wars-y and the kids and parents really enjoyed it. I also brought in my book of Star Wars Origami by Chris Alexander. A few of the kids made lightsabers and I managed to get the Han Solo in carbonite to look pretty decent! I even put some SWTOR referral codes out! Overall, today was a huge success. I’ve seen how having the Star Wars comics available at my library has promoted reading and this event was just another opportunity to encourage reading through the fandom. Even kids who don’t like reading, if they do like Star Wars, I can get them to check something out. The Kanan series does extremely well here and I think it’s because the kid’s all recognize him from the show. I think if they did a youth minded Rebels comic it would do super well also.
I love my job, but I’m not going to lie, today I loved it even more. It was great nerding out with the patrons and having a good time sharing something I love with my community while promoting literacy. I can’t wait for Star Wars Reads Day 2016! If you didn’t know about today, make sure to look for it next year! If you want a BB-8 or bookmark, let me know! I'll send you one!
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