BCTELA

Patty Holmes is a resource teacher at John Norquay School in Vancouver, and has been a long- time member of the BCTELA Executive.

Have you ever imagined 700 children all talking about books, dreaming about books, or begging for time to read books? Can you imagine what it would be like if, suddenly, every child in the school had ten new books to read that they really, really wanted to read? Can you picture trying to keep eager students away from books because it isn't their turn to get some yet? Or having to bar the door because there are too many people trying to get in to touch some books?

Well, imagine hosting a book exchange like the one we've done here at John Norquay School for the last 16 years. Every May, we spend two days trading thousands of books for free, to ensure that every student in the school has a minimum of one new book to read over the summer. This year at the 16th Annual Book Exchange, the average was ten books for each student, as we traded over 7000 books.

It's cheap and easy to plan this event. You'll need a lot of cardboard boxes and a big roll of dollar store admission-style tickets to start off with. Plus, a valuable crew of teachers interested in supporting you is handy-you'll need them to agree to count books and issue tickets. Basically, the children bring in all their "old" books from home (in good condition) to the classroom, where they are examined for condition, counted, and boxed. The teachers (or student helpers) keep a tally sheet until the day of the event, when they hand out tickets to each student who has brought in books: one ticket for each book brought in.

Some students bring in dozens of books, some bring in none...but everyone gets a chance to get a book. If you didn't bring in a book, because you didn't have any, or didn't understand the concept, or just plain forgot, you can always bring a quarter on the second day of the exchange. On that day, every book on the thirty tables in the gym goes for 25 cents. This year we made about $138 on second- day sales.

We take that money and go shopping with it for the next year. My book exchange manager/ predecessor, recent retiree Phyllis Lane, left me a perfectly detailed list of things to do in preparation for the big event. Number 19 on the list was to go shopping for intermediate level books at garage sales, library sales and second hand stores starting in September. Unfortunately, I didn't read the list until February, so we were a little short of intermediate level reading material. Because most of the intermediate students bring their primary picture books in and wish to trade them for novels, we always run short of novels and need to build that end up. We always have an oversupply of good picture books and many older children are happy to "buy" a few of those for their siblings and younger friends, but the truth is we need to stock up in advance on junior novels and youth-oriented reading material.

Luckily, we had some big supporters that came in and helped us out this year. A couple of teachers canvassed local booksellers and netted us boxes of donated books and several teachers with mature families scanned their own bookshelves at home and donated items their own children had long outgrown. Plus, we had a fair chunk of cash in the account to go shopping at the Scholastic 50% off annual sale in early May, where we found beautiful new books to give away. Finally, many children did not use all their tickets up, so even though they were entitled to nearly 100 books, they were happy taking home only ten really good ones. Apparently, a good book in the hand can be worth ten on the table. So, it all worked out fairly well in spite of the shopping glitch this year.

Not all children were so unconcerned about the exchange rate, of course. There were tears: one girl had only 27 books and needed 53 more. (So many books, so little time!) And, worst of all, her class was the last one scheduled to come to the gym for their one period to exchange. This is where politics play a part; you don't want one of your really good teacher friends on staff to be the last one to sign up on the book exchange schedule you've posted on the counter beside the morning staff bulletin. The last ones in truly do not get the best selection, in terms of what kids think is good anyway. So, there we were, Betsy and I, trying our best to convince the mournful last child that in fact Tom Sawyer was a pretty good book, and so was Anne of Green Gables, and that we had personally read Charlotte's Web and loved it...and so on. The fact was the older books' covers were not fit to judge their content, lacking as they were in the cachet of a Bone graphic novel. Those, of course, disappeared in the first period. Finally, we had a happy girl on our hands, but it was pretty close and took some artful sales skills.

So, next year? I think I'll start shopping for novels in September, along with a team of other teachers. And, I'll see about trying a lottery system for who gets to be first to sign up for a spot on the exchange schedule. Of course, the primary class and intermediate class that brings in the most books will still win a chance to be the first ones through the door. And I hope the incredible crew of parents that sat by the doors, took tickets, guided children to select books, kept tables tidy and helped set up and clean up are there forever: they are wonderful!

Overall, though, what it truly takes to support an event like this is a dedicated group of teachers for whom literacy and reading is a really big deal. They all need to agree to shut down the gym for three days and to put some of their energy and maybe a tiny bit of the school budget into making sure there are enough books to go around. Luckily, Norquay has an amazing staff that has the will and the way to make it all happen. When it comes to the Book Exchange, these teachers get behind it one hundred percent. Their uncompromising dedication to reading is what inspires a beaming 11-year-old to haul in 181 books to trade, and gets new free books on every student's shelf for the summer.