Book Trailers

Seen any good books lately? To pique the interest of my school library patrons, the students and I create shelf talkers and book trailers —also known as a book videos, book teasers, or book presenters. The book trailers communicate distinct and unique interpretations of text to a global audience and allow students to view a peer's review, rather than a teacher summary, of an exciting read.

We have been creating book trailers for a few years using Photostory,Toufee, and Voice Thread. Their popularity is evident as the students are finding that more videos are now available. UCF Digital Booktalk provides a written paragraph of the book with a Quicktime video about the book. A VoiceThread created by third graders about a traditional Japanese craft illustrates that varied uses of digital storytelling. Most appropriate for middle years and high school. For teacher-librarians, check out Nancy Keane’s Booktalks gone podcast!

The students and I will be trying a new (to-us) Web tool Glogster, which lets us create an online poster complete with images, sound, video clips, text, and hyperlinks.