Get a Jurassic Jumpstart on March Reading Madness

In March, many schools and libraries hold March Reading Madness as a way to get kids excited about books. There are so many different ways to hold the tournament, but the basic premise is that kids log the number of hours/books they read outside of school and compete to see who can read the most during the month of March! Depending on the set-up, individual students or separate classrooms are assigned the name of an NCAA basketball team. For every book a student reads, he or she earns points. Each week, the points are tallied and the most avid readers’ teams move up in the bracket. At the end of the month, one reader is named champion, and all participants will have gained an invaluable amount of reading time and will have discovered so many new books! (Great sample of a March Reading Madness tournament, here)

Reading competitions are a great way to instill in kids the habit of taking time to read everyday. Once kids start the habit and realize how fun, interesting, and absolutely absorbing it can be to get lost in a good book, there’ll be no end to the library trips even after March turns into April.

There is a moment in every reader’s life when he or she realizes just how many wonderful books there are out there, acknowledges the sheer impossibility of reading them all, and happily accepts the challenge of attempting to do so anyway. Jurassic Classics: The Prehistoric Masters of Literature could be precisely that moment for a young reader, as the quirky book introduces classic literature in an inviting way – and with a twist. Instead of just running through the history of beloved literary greats, Jurassic Classics turns the authors into dinosaurs and imagines the hilarious prehistoric adventures of the Brontesaurus Sisters and William Shakespearasaurus! Who wouldn’t want to read all the novels of Mark Twainceratops, the finest wit of the Cretaceous Period?