YAAS: Group Discussion May 21

If you want to learn about the original conception and mission of this program, read my What is YAAS? post. TL;DR: It's a weekly group for youth age 14-24 where we'll be doing community service work, library programs, hosting guest presenters, and making connections with peers in a safe and welcoming environment.

For the second week in a row, I decided to change up the program at the last minute! Today I didn't so much change it as just add more substance, because I didn't think the group discussion question "What are you passionate about?" would take an hour and a half to discuss. Instead, we used that question as an ice breaker during tonight's introductions before moving on to another activity. The activity was loosely based on the "blind date with a book" displays that are usually popular around Valentine's Day. 

Everyone in my office has been asked to clean out their cubicles in preparation for painting and carpeting the entire building, so I needed to find a home for the twenty or so advanced reader copies of YA books that I've been collecting over the last several months. My awesome adult volunteer helped me hide each book in paper bags before the YAAS members arrived. After introductions, I invited everyone to pick a disguised book without looking in the bag. 

When everyone had their books, I gave them 15 minutes to roam free in the library, find a cozy spot, and learn everything they could about their book's plot, characters, and anything else relevant or interesting. This was one of the few times I actually allowed cell phone use in-program, since a lot of advanced reader copies are missing a plot description. I let the kids know that they could use their phones to search for info about their book or its author, gave them a time to be back in the room, and set them free.

Fifteen minutes later, everyone came back ready to discuss. One at a time, each participant told the group what they learned about the book that they chose at random. After they were finished discussing, they got to decide if they wanted to keep the book. If they didn't want to take it home, it was offered up to the rest of the group. This way, a lot of people got new books to keep forever, I cleaned off a whole shelf of my desk, and we had a book-based program! 

Unfortunately I didn't get to take any pictures, so here is my favorite jaunty librarian again.