Book Trailer Making Program for Kids

Friday was a no-school day for the kids in my city, so I thought I would tackle something that I've wanted to do with kids since I learned of its inception: the creation of book trailers. Because I knew it was going to be pretty involved, I had registration and capped it at 10; 7 registered, and I ended up with three (hey, it was a sunny, warm, no-school Wisconsin Friday in February).

Film reel

The kids who did show up were from other program that I've run; 2 from Wednesday-ology and one from the Garfield party. Knowing them like I did already, I couldn't ask for a better group to try out a brand-new program that was entirely conceived, written, and implemented while I was hyped-up on cold medicine.



Like movies trailers make you want to see a movie, book trailers make you want to read a book. I started with this idea, and showed them some of the 2012 Trailee award winners. This trailer had them literally rolling on the floor laughing.At this point, I couldn't help but think, thank God that you  are all that easily amused. This bodes well for the rest of the afternoon.

I read them The True Story of the Three Little Pigs by John Scieska, and we made a trailer together.

Afterward, I book-talked 7 books (remember, I was expecting 7 people) that I had decided we would use. The day before, I had found 4 pictures for each book and uploaded them to a Flickr account I then tied to the OneTrueMedia account I made for the kid's department. The kids each picked one book and went to work.



Aside from the pictures, everything about the trailers was customizable. The music, the text (words, font, colors), transitions, effects, length of each frame... I even let them write whatever they wanted in the "description" portion when it was time to upload them to Youtube.

Here's links to the finished products. Please, like them, share them, and leave positive comments. I'd love to show the kids the impact they've made the next time they come in!

"Knuffle Bunny Too" by Mo Willems (trailer by Mason, age 7)
"The Pigeon Wants a Puppy" by Mo Willems (trailer by Emily, age 8)
"If You Give a Mouse a Cookie" by Lauren Numeroff (trailer by Alex, age 11)

I'll gladly share with anyone the ins and outs of this program; it's very easy to implement, but I would really suggest the fewer kids the better. Next time, I might have more kids, but have these original three as "helpers" to ease the amount of hands raised.