Holiday book drop to bring spirit of giving

‘Tis the season for giving, and next week, a Holiday Book Drop will take place at the high school to encourage holiday spirits. All week long, teachers will be wrapping and hiding books throughout the building, which anyone can find and keep.

“I hope that [this book drop] gets everyone in the spirit of the holidays, no matter what holiday you celebrate,” Amy Pine, Holiday Book Drop coordinator said, “I love gifts giving, and this drop is great because it’s like, ‘here’s something that’s just for you and it’s not homework and you don’t have to read it if you don’t want to, but we hope that you want to read it and have some fun with it.”

Although this book drop involves reading, an activity which many students have come to associate with English class readings, Beth Slaughter, English teacher, hopes that the books provided will cause students to enjoy reading for fun.

“We, as an English department, really firmly believe that students will be more engaged in reading if they can choose the book they read. And so, obviously, it’s going to be hard to enjoy reading if you never do it or if you’re forced to read something that is too hard or not interesting, so we tried to pick books that are interesting to teenagers and not like Moby Dick or a Tale of Two Cities. I think there’s an element of excitement in unwrapping a present, something fun about finding a surprise and then discovering something new, and maybe a student will pick up a book that they wouldn’t normally read, and just start reading it because now it’s theirs.”

Last year, the first time the English department organized this event, Pine said it was “a success. There were students who were really big readers who would come in to the library at the beginning of the day and say, ‘have you dropped any books yet?’ and try to get out of me where I put them.”

This year, Pine hints that there will be a few advanced copies of books scattered around so school, so students may get the opportunity to get their hands on books that are not on sale yet. Overall though, she hopes that this year’s Holiday Book Drop will be even more of a success than last year.

“I really hope that it just gets everyone in the mood to give to somebody else. I would love it if students wanted to start participating too, and sharing their books as well, to get everyone more involved with the giving and receiving spirit of the holidays.”