I worked at the cutest little bookstore coffee shop last week. In that small space, the collection had to be heavily curated, with just one or two books by popular authors and launching points for popular series books for kids. But the shop still held one full bookshelf for staff recommendations, covers out. Each employee had their shelf: "Sarah recommends....," "Tia recommends...., "William recommends...," etc.

And while I had plenty of my own ideas about what authors I might like to read, I found myself spending a good chunk of my browsing time finding out what Sarah, Tia, William, and the rest of the crew recommended. After all, if someone took the time to share their top favorites of all time, I knew they must be worth MY time.

It's this bees-to-honey concept that makes me return, time and again, to the importance of the classroom library and the way you display it. While it's easy to brush off the aesthetics of the library, I repeatedly find that they matter a lot. Fresh displays, careful displays, displays that center books that students love the most... these things support your reading program from the outside in. Students can't become readers without the right books, and the physical space of the library is our chance to show off those books.

So this week I've got a fun fall display for you (make your copy here) and I want to walk you through how to put it up, in hopes that this can be a big win for your readers heading into this season of reading. Soon you can add a banned books display, and a Hispanic Heritage Month Display, but for now, we're focusing on putting student favorites at the center.

Let's dive in.

Remember to grab your copy of the display (and see all the visuals from today's walkthrough) over in the full blog post for today's show at nowsparkcreativity.com.

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