SD73 Sagebrush Book Awards Reader's Choice/Reading Motivation Program - SD73 Students Have Spoken

Andrea Wallin, District Library Coordinator

Literacy is part of the Intellectual Development Priority of the 2022-2027 District Strategic Plan. To inspire students to share their love of reading and to have fun together, we have the Sagebrush Book Award Program in which grades 4-7 have taken part in voting for their favorite texts.

This year, we are pleased to announce this year's winners of the SD73 Sagebrush Book Awards (K-7)! Elementary students selected The Barnabus Project by the Fan Brothers and Two Degrees by Alan Gratz as their favourite picture book and novel from the SD73 Sagebrush Book Awards list of (16) popular titles.

"This new reading motivation program was a huge hit with students at AE Perry," says Teacher-Librarian Rick Rhynolds.

Rhynolds shared some of the program highlights below -

"In the Fall I read/shared each of the picture books with all students that I meet with in the library. We also did follow-up/extension activities with each of the picture books, which really made the storylines come alive for the readers. In May, voting was done as a secret ballot in our "polling" station where students just dropped a coloured square ballot (that matched the book they like best) into the ballot box that we had set up. Then we just counted the coloured square ballots and recorded the results as a running record. I created a chart to show the final school results with the students. It was lots of fun and the residual effect has been that students are still hyped about the books and are still signing them out." (Rhynolds, AE Perry and Dallas TL).

Highlights

• 19 schools participated
• 419 individual student votes and 17 group/class votes
• participation across the grades
• close results=quality/engaging books
• many Canadian books selected=Canadian author/illustrator promotion

What's Next

   June:

• A poster highlighting the top three "picks" from 2022 - 2023 will be delivered to schools this month
• Two book plate stickers will be delivered to schools this month. NOTE: Please add the book plate to the inside cover of Two Degrees and Barnabus.
• TLs, please share this information with staff and students!

   September:

• 2023 - 2024 titles will be launched and shared with schools in September! Check out https://sagebrushbookawards.weebly.com/ for more information. *Thank you to the Sagebrush Book Awards Team for reading and reviewing new books all year long and thoughtfully making title selections!
• 2023 - 2024 complimentary titles, one of each (16 titles in total), will be delivered to elementary schools in September, along with bookmarks and posters. *Thank you to the C & I Dept. for providing funding for this special program. 

Thank you for participating in this new reading motivation program! We are excited to continue to promote these new picture books and novels with SD73 students and staff.

Happy reading!

Andrea Wallin

On behalf of the SD73 Sagebrush Book Awards Team