How many of you have prizes for your Summer Library Program? I am very interested in the conversation about whether or not giving out trinkets as prizes for reading is a good or bad practice. There has been a lot of discussion on an Association for Library Service to Children list serv about using prizes to motivate kids to read, with compelling arguments on both sides.

Some kids who don’t like to read find that a small trinket is a motivation to keep reading and coming to the library during the summer, according to many of the librarians posting to the list. Has this been your experience?

I wonder about adding more cheaply-produced plastic to the world, and what other options there are…What do you do? How does it work? What do kids think?

One great idea from this discussion was asking kids to weed their own collections, and bring in good-condition books they no longer wanted to own. The kids who bring in books really enjoy taking ownership in this way, and the library doesn’t have to spend money on books!

What do you do about prizes? Please comment!