May 28, 2020
The annual MPA Parents Association Book Festival has left us with many awesome books to carry us through the summer, along with proceeds for our library to purchase new books to benefit our library, teachers, and greater community! It was so wonderful to see Valley Book Seller, Usborne Books, and Breakthrough Twin Cities highlighted on our social media platforms, and all the great responses from our community.
A heartfelt thank you to everyone who made the Book Festival a success! First, we want to thank all of you who purchased books, for being flexible and willing to try something new this year, and for supporting the Breakthrough summer literature program. Without you, there would be no Book Festival! We want to thank the parent volunteers, as they are key to helping our MPA community put on so many well-loved traditions. We want to thank Nancy Lage, as well as many teachers and administrators, for the time they spent brainstorming wonderful ways to engage our community in reading activities throughout the Book Festival. Finally, both Valley Book Seller and Usborne Books also send a big thank you to our community for supporting their small businesses during this hard time. We don’t know what next year will bring, but we will be excited to offer our Book Festival anytime, anywhere, anyway!
Here are some fun stats from the Book Festival from our Book Seller Partners:
Valley Book Seller :
- 26 orders were placed, and 138 books were ordered
- Middle Grade Fiction and Young Adult Fiction were in close competition for most books purchased in a category, but in the end it was Middle School Fiction for the win with 35 books purchased, with Young Adult Fiction a close second with 29
- While most book titles were only purchased once, there were a few that were very popular and purchased four (4) times each: Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (Hunger Games Prequel), by Suzanne Collins, and Fountains of Silence by Ruta Sepetys
Usborne Books:
- 12 orders were placed, with a great variety of books ordered. There wasn’t one particular title that was ordered by each family, but here are some of the variety of books that were purchased:
- Interactive non-fiction books, such as lift the flap books,
- Some great fiction like Illustrated Originals series (unabridged versions of famous stories)
- Different types of activity, drawing, and science experiment activity books
