Book Trailer Reflection

I have a secret to share. As a school librarian, I have never made a book trailer! I use book trailers in lessons and love sharing them with my students to promote books. However, I have never ventured into the realm of creating my own or having my students create one. So, I was a novice for this assignment. I decided to use Animoto. It seemed like it was very user friendly and a common tool for creating book trailers. I had used iMovie before and so was somewhat familiar with that program. I wanted to try something new. Also, I have heard so many positive comments about Animoto. I was excited to try it myself.

I decided to create a book trailer for timely title, Balloons Over Broadway by Melissa Sweet. I had read it with my 2nd grade students. I liked the idea of creating a book trailer for a nonfiction title. This particular book in my library is in a very under utilized space. It is in the biography section that, sadly, is not looked at often. Mostly because it is separate from the rest of the collections. So, I thought it would be a great collection to highlight.

Click to learn more about the historic parade! 

I had no problem finding entertaining images to include in the book trailer. The pictures and photographs in the book are visually appealing and fun. Each page is an explosion of color! I used the colorful theme for the trailer. The book had a lot of red and yellow in it so I thought it would match well. I also wanted to incorporate some historical photos of the parade and Tony Sarg.

The hardest part for me in creating the book trailer was writing the text. With such limited time and space, every word counts. There wasn't enough space to write long descriptions or sentences for the book. So, I wrote short choppy sentences. Often having one word for each picture.  Also, I did not want to include a lot of text if I was using this for primary age students.

Overall, I really enjoyed using Animoto. I felt it was very easy and one could create book trailers rather quickly. There is definitely not a lot of personalization options to it. So, it would be very useful for primary students. They would only have a few steps to complete to create a great book trailer!

   

Balloons Over Broadway book trailer