“The Library Will Buy You a Book Day”: A Novel Approach to Promoting Recreational Reading

Abstract

This paper examines the impact of “The Library Will Buy You a Book Day,” an event designed to promote recreational reading among students at The Hotchkiss School, an independent boarding high school of roughly 600 students located in Lakeville, Connecticut. Situating this event in the ever-growing body of research showing that an interest in reading for pleasure correlates strongly with academic success, this paper suggests one approach to putting the research to work in designing programs that increase students’ likelihood of engaging in recreational reading by promoting positive attitudes towards reading in the community and reducing barriers to access to compelling books.