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Our elementary school PTA has a huge used booksale every year. It is the main source of income for our PTA.  We hold it during the city’s Labor Day Festival, a four-day, all-consuming affair. This year we added two new events: Guest Readers and A Reading Life.

Guest readers were local celebrities — the mayor, a local music producer, the local director of a favorite drama camp, the school security officer etc. They each sat near the main stage, chose a favorite book and read into a microphone for 15 minutes between the paid acts. They introduced stories, kept kids from wandering off between acts, and offered a calm, lovely image that contrasted with the rest of the frantic festival. I’ve already started asking people for next year.

A Reading Life was an attempt to make the booksale more interactive. I know people are already sifting through the 25,000 donated books, but I would love it people would stop and talk more to their neighbors about these books. So I compiled a list of favorite books. I asked the teachers, the principal, parents, neighbors, friends on facebook, and anyone else I could think of to tell me a favorite book or two. I typed those up and stuck them on poster board near the sale. Then I added paper and markers, asking festival-goers to add their own favorites. We had maybe 80 names of books, until the rain soaked the paper. My hope is that you might see a friend’s name, or a favorite teacher’s name and say, “I want to try that book.”