What Is a Book Walk?

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by Kate Narita

Kate Palaces Narita is a fourth grade teacher at The Center School in Stow, MA, and she is the author of 100 Bugs! A Counting Book. When she is not out and about driving, teaching, or cheering on her two sons, Kate lives, writes, and hikes on a small mountain in central Massachusetts. There is a magical part of Mt. Wachusett in every one of her stories. Be it small wonders like darting dragonflies and gorgeous garden phlox, or large wonders like munching moose and beautiful balsam firs, she celebrates nature's bounty each and every day.

Students “love finding and reading new and interesting books.” They also love reading books, “you might never read.” In addition, students love “seeing what different books are like, and what their authors are like.” These are my students’ quotes about book walks.

What’s a book walk? It’s an activity I learned about from Karina Hirschhorn, a school librarian in Maryland. In her library, she sets up piles of books on tables, and the students rotate through each table to look at covers and read a few pages of the books she has displayed. Students discover new authors or genres. They leave her library with books that they may never have found had she left them hidden on her library shelves.

Once a month in my classroom, I gather my favorite books from my classroom library or our school bookroom. I split the books into piles of five, making sure that there are no duplicate authors or topics in a single pile. I invite half of my class to select the pile that most appeals to them. In the next hour, the kids who chose the pile will spend five minutes meeting with each child in the other half of the class to partner read one or two

of their books. There is no chance for students to get sleepy or stare out the window because they know they only have five minutes to look at the goods the stationary student is offering. Think of it as book speed dating.

What ends up happening is that the child who is staying in one spot, starts to like one of the books in her pile after reading a few pages during the first rotations. Then, she begins to sell one book to everyone who rotates through to her station. They try to persuade like professional booksellers. Kids exclaim, “We have to read this one, it’s so funny,” or “This is about football. Let’s read this one.” But, the rotating student has the final say in which book they’ll read. Sometimes the rotating student says, “I don’t like football. Let’s read this book about animals.”

After the book walk, I make an array of books in the center of our rug and all of my students, the ones who sat in one place and the ones who rotated, sit on the rug’s border. Then, I pull a stick with a student’s name on it. That student gets to pick their book first. Students literally hold their breath, rocking back and forth, hands clasped in hope that no one will pick the book they want. Cries of anguish fill the room when a child chooses a book someone else wanted. The crestfallen students beg the lucky reader to pass the book onto them when they finish. Meanwhile, relief washes over children whose book of choice is still on the rug. As one of my students said, “The really fun bit is you get to pick a book of your choice that you liked.”

Not only do students get to choose which books they want to read, they always spend part of their five-minute meet up discussing the book with their friends. One student stated that she likes book walks because, “it’s fun to read back and forth with your classmates.” For the five minutes they’re sitting with a student who has a pile of books, they’re reading aloud together from one or two books. But they’re not just reading the books, they’re talking about them.

None of my students mentioned movement as a reason why they like book walks, but I think physically moving from space-to-space is a big part of the book walk’s success. Students with the piles of books choose whether they want to sit at their desks, or sprawl out at their reading spots, which are all around the room on the floor, on rugs or carpet squares, at tables, by windows and in dish chairs. Then, the other half of the class is rotating to a new spot every five minutes.

Teachers love book walks because they are an efficient use of time. For the teacher, it doesn’t take long to pull together stacks of five books. I always pull one more stack than I need so that the last student choosing his or her stack of books still has a choice. Plus, I love looking through literature. You probably do, too, since you’re reading the MRA journal. Also, unlike students’ written recommendations, their oral recommendations do not require any proofreading, publishing, or collating.

Students love book walks because they are an efficient use of their time, too. One student said, “I can see books and get books I like without going to the library and wasting my time.” Now, I myself never think a moment spent in the library is a waste of time. But, clearly this student thinks that having curated books to glance through is more efficient than being overwhelmed by thousands of books and not having an idea where he can find titles that interest him.

I frequently buy books for my classroom based on my students’ interests. Until I began doing book walks with my class, those books often sat on the shelves because students didn’t realize they were there. Each time I do this activity, I’m showcasing books I have in my classroom, or that I have access to in our bookroom.

The type of books I’m showcasing depends on what we’re studying. If we’re studying informa-

tional books, I have informational picture books and middle grade books. If we’re studying realistic fiction, I have realistic fiction picture books, chapter books, and novels. If we’re in a test prep unit, I throw in every genre and every book length possible. As a result, books are getting into kids’ hands - where they’re supposed to be.

Book walks surprise students because they often find themselves choosing books they would never have picked off the shelf. One student wrote that he probably would have thought, “Eh, this book is just okay,” if he glanced at it; but that “the time I got to read in the five minutes was enjoyable like a nice little sampler.” Another student said she wouldn’t have chosen her book because, “Looking at the cover of my book it doesn't seem like my type.” Yet another student said he wouldn’t have chosen the book because, “I don't like the title of the book, but I like the book.”

Finally, book walks are fun. Many students wrote comments like, “It’s fun to read and pick new books.” Other students didn’t just call them fun; they claim to “love” book walks. How often do you hear kids talk about something they love at school? Not often enough.

Two students didn’t use the word fun or love when describing book walks. One of those students doesn’t like book walks because, “I don’t like to read out loud.” So, for my next book walk, I’ll try having students split their time between reading silently and then talking about what they read with their partners. The other student said, “There is not really enough time to actually understand the book.” Perhaps after everyone has chosen one book, I could let the student that felt she needed more time pick a few more books and bring the titles home with her to get a deeper understanding of each one.

So, try a book walk. Make it a part of your Friday fun routine and witness your students falling in love with books each time they take a walk. Have fun!