**My readalike posters are available for free near end of post**

Displaying the Readalike Lists

I’m sure that by now most of us have seen the post from last spring where fellow librarian Melissa Corey (twitter @melissacorey) posted her awesome idea for repurposing an old desk organizer as a new for sharing visual book lists. The tweet went viral, as so many librarians and teachers saw how practical and fun the idea was. Melissa also was very generous in providing her book menus for free to anyone who wanted to replicate the idea. You can find Melissa’s downloads on her website Visual Book Lists.

As soon as I saw Melissa’s tweet and lists I knew I wanted to replicate the idea in our library. I’ve always been a big fan of readalike lists and posters, and I’m always looking for a new way to use them and ensure they are useful to my students. Several years ago I wrote a blog post called “Reading Recs Via a “What To Read Next” Wall” where I shared some of the readalike posters I had made to help my students. Since then I’ve updated my wall, using a new strategy where the posters are larger and easier to swap books out on each list. I also love doing tiktoks and instagram posts that function as “what to read next” or “readalike” lists.

So when I saw Melissa’s method for sharing/displaying book lists I knew I wanted to try it too! I was initially a bit put out by the cost of the desk organizers and had planned to DIY one using a cookbook stand and a regular binder instead of using an official desktop organizer, but then one of our AMAZING school administrative assistants unearthed an old desktop organizer that she found somewhere in the school for me, so now I actually get to use both versions. One will be at the circ desk and other will be on the other side of the room in our nonfiction section!

For my DIY version I just purchased an inexpensive clip on cookbook stand and used a binder I’d already had at hand. You can see that one below!

The Posters

You’ll notice in the pictures below that for my readalike posters I’ve opted to add both the navigational info to each book (the call number and section) as well as a QR code that, when scanned, will take students to the Destiny Discover record for the book. I’ve chosen to add these bits of info to help facilitate easy access to the books. This way if the student sees a book cover and title that seems interesting they can either take the call # listed right below it and quickly find the book in order to see if its synopsis is interesting OR they can easily scan the QR code in order to learn more about each book. Its a bit time consuming to add this info but I think it will be worth it. On the template link below I’ve already removed our QR codes but I have not removed our call #s so if you reuse my posters make sure you change or delete that part!

You’ll also notice that most of my posters have a pretty small # of books on each one, most have only 6 recs on each page. This was purposeful, as I’ve found that many students can get overwhelmed with too much choice or too many options so I’m trying to see if the smaller amount of recs on each page proves helpful to some of those students.

I plan on creating more of these throughout the year and I will share additional ones in future posts!

You are welcome to access my posters via the template link below. You are welcome to edit, change, and reuse them noncommercially. If you create new ones then I hope you’ll consider sharing them for free with others and perhaps adding your link to the free documents to this padlet for sharing readalike posters.

Access My Editable Readalike Posters

Want More Freely Reuseable Readalike Lists?

The wonderful Lisa Krok (twitter @readonthebeach) has generously created and shared more readlike lists, which are available here via canva template.

I have now created a shared padlet where anyone can add links to more freely re-useable readlike style book lists. I hope you’ll feel welcome to add yours to the list should you end up creating your own! Access Padlet