It’s February! And that means…..drumroll….Valentine’s Day! I have to be honest and admit that V. Day has never been particularly important to me. Frankly, when it comes to commercialized holidays, I’m far more invested in Halloween. BUT, I do remember the stress that came with Valentine’s Day when I was in high school.  If you have a large group of friends or a “bae” (<-I’m so hip with the kids, no?) it would mostly be ok, since you could be pretty much assured of getting a valentine or one of the roses or candy-grams the clubs were always selling. But if you weren’t part of a large social group, it really could be an unenjoyable day. There’s nothing worse than feeling unloved, invisible, or left out, right? ESPECIALLY when you are a teenager.

I remember feeling left out, which is why I always try really hard to make our HS library a comfortable, welcoming, fulfilling space. I try to make it a place that encourages connection and dispels the isolation many of our students feel. So over the last couple weeks I was trying to think of something I could do for Valentine’s Day that would be fun, and which would give all the students a chance to enjoy the day.

Last year I did a “Share Your Library Love” board. That was fun, and great for me (I kept all the hearts, seeing them helps remind me of what things the students find important). But I wanted to do something different this year.

My first idea for this year was to repeat something I did last winter, where I did one of those “take what you need” kindness displays. But I’m hoping to save that one for March and April, which (due to testing) tend to be stressful times for the students.

Finally inspiration struck! While scrolling through the School Librarian’s Workshop Facebook page, I saw a post by a librarian who was awesome enough to share her February Romance Book Display, where she used hilarious literary puns and pickup lines. You can find her post here.

Her display totally inspired me, and I came up with something that is kind of a marriage between her amazing literary pick-up lines idea and the “take what you need” kindness display idea. So I created a bunch of punny literary valentines and every student who wants one can come to the library and get a Valentine.

Every valentine is literary-inspired, the cornier the better. I used “free to reuse” images or free clipart, and made the valentines on Canva.com. Printed them on card stock. Taped them to our mobile whiteboard, and will set that up at the front of the library. I’ll advertise about it on the morning announcements and on the instagram (and share some of the valentines there too, which is why I created them in instagramable square shapes).

And my Valentines gift to you, dear reader, is to share the Valentines I created with you. They are all below, and are free for your reuse. Enjoy!

*Please note that while I came up with a few of the puns myself, many of them are borrowed from other sources online. All of the images, however, were created by me in canva.com.