Blind Date with a Book

If you know me, you know I’ve been kind of obsessed with classroom library design for decades. And I’ve been studying the ways bookstores organize books, because their strategies always inform the design of our classroom library. Recently I’ve become fascinated by the idea of “Blind Date with a Book”. If you haven’t seen these around, you purchase a book that is wrapped in brown paper with a synopsis and/or a few clues about the book. Sometimes a bookstore staff member writes a bit of a hint of what you might find when you take off the wrap. Other bookstores sell them by genre. Either way, you really don’t know the book you are buying. 

As a reader, I don’t think this would work for me. I don’t pay much attention to these in bookstores and have never even considered buying one. I am very intentional when I pick my next read and I have to not only like the idea of the book, but I have to be in the mood for it. I have to read the first page to decide if it’s right for me at that moment.  I’m pretty sure that a Blind Date with a Book would not work for me. But in a workshop this weekend, one of the participants shared that she LOVES this concept. She said when she buys one of these, it invites her to try books she would never try on her own and she discovers new books and new authors.

 Since hearing her insights, I am rethinking this idea of Blind Date with a Book. Not for myself. (I am still not convinced it’s for me.) But would some type of “Mystery Book” idea work out as part of a classroom library display? I’ve never seen this idea in the children’s section of any of our local bookstores (although I could have missed them since I am not a fan.) 

 I am clearly late to the party because once I started investigating, I found lots of children’s versions of this idea being implemented. And there are definitely lots of elementary librarians who have tried this and had success. 

 So, I’m wondering, does this concept have a place in elementary classroom libraries? Would students like the idea of trying a book wrapped in brown paper? Could something like this help them think about what they like as readers and help some expand their identities as readers?

 I can imagine wrapping a few books when a new book order arrives and adding a synopsis or some keyword hints. I can imagine that if this catches on,  students would be the ones to create these “mystery books” by writing the synopsis, etc. 

I do not like anything gimmicky, but I am up for anything library-design that supports readers. I want every child  to not only find books they love, but to also  grow as readers with the books they choose. So if this idea supports just a few readers, it might be worth adding it periodically to our classroom library displays. 

Our classroom libraries have to meet the needs of every reader. So even though Blind Date with a Book feels very iffy for me as a reader, I am seeing the potential it might have for some readers. 

 Is this something you might try in your elementary classroom or library?