Our school has decided to embark on a “One Book, One School” reading adventure! Our novel is Kenny and the Dragon by Toni DiTerlizzi. As a member of this committee, I think we came up with several creative ideas to excite the students and families beginning with a kick-off assembly and book drop off. Our librarian read the first chapter to the entire school as I played the roll of the main character, Kenny the rabbit. (My ideas sound so good when I come up with them, but up in front of 500 people, I was wishing I had that same confidence.) We had borrowed an awesome dragon costume from the high school drama department, which snuggly fit our principal. He was game for it! During the assembly, he surprised the kids as Grahame, the dragon, and announced he had just left a special delivery for them in their classrooms. When the classes returned, they discovered he had left a huge stack of novels, one for each kid, and special scroll letter.
The OSOB committee also set up a little display in the lobby, created daily trivia questions and weekly trivia videos featuring virtual backgrounds from the novel, and centered our annual fall book fair around the theme of knights and dragons to match the story. As we wrapped up the novel, I enlisted my students to perform a readers’ theatre production of the final two chapters. I made a script, cast the parts, and gathered/created costumes and props. Our music teacher helped me match instruments to characters so that all 28 students would have a role in the performance. It was impressive! And I’m excited to see what we conjure up for next year’s OSOB event!
Kristen Foley 