Blind Dates with Books!

Posted by Kirsten Hubbard
on
Today's guest post is from Lauren Gibaldi Mathur, whose library came up with an adorable twist on the "Blind Date with a Book" project that went viral on Tumblr. When I saw her post about it on Facebook -- including one book I'm particularly fond of! -- I asked her to share with YA Highway.

In celebration of February and all things romantic, a co-worker and I created a library display entitled “Blind Date with a Book.” The idea was simple – we chose a number of adult and young adult novels that featured a central romance in the plot. The books had to be currently checked in, and not from 2013 (since newer books are in higher demand). We created dating profiles for each book (obviously utilizing numerous dating websites for research – and what fun research it was!) and then wrapped them in brown and pink paper.

Starting this week patrons can check out the book based only on the dating profile. They won’t know what the book is until it’s checked out and unwrapped. I’m sure some dates will go wonderfully, some terribly, but either way, I’m sure it’ll be a story to share.

I’ll admit, the idea was not original – libraries have done it before – but what makes ours unique are the dating profiles. I’d like to think the characters are somewhere, thinking yeah, that fits me perfectly.

 What do you think? Would you go on a blind date with a book? Here are some of our wrapped YA novels. Can you guess what they are? (Click on the pics to zoom, and highlight the bottom of the post to see the answers!)

book 1
book 2
book 3
book 4
book 5
book 6
book 7
book 8
Thanks, Lauren!

Lauren Gibaldi Mathur is a young adult author and public librarian. She’s quite find of dinosaurs, cardigans and cheesy jokes. Michelle Andelman of Regal Literary represents her. You can find her at http://laurengibaldi.com, or on Twitter as @laurengibaldi.

The Answers (highlight to see):

 Book 1 – Wanderlove by Kirsten Hubbard
Book 2 – Geek Magnet by Kieran Scott
Book 3 – Twilight (We had to) 
Book 4 – Teen Idol by Meg Cabot 
Book 5 – International Kissing Club by Ivy Adams 
Book 6 – Kiss Crush Collide by Christina Meredith 
Book 7 – Matched by Ally Condie 
Book 8 – The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight by Jennifer E. Smith




11 comments:

  1. So cool! My library has been doing this for years and I get a few every year. This year, I picked up three, got two classics that I really want to read and The Blind Side.

    I wish they would do something like this more often because I like so many genres that it tends to work out well.

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  2. That is cool. I'm going to suggest this to my library immediately.

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  3. I was just talking about this with my cousin, haha. We (okay, she had the idea) thought it'd be fun to personal ads for unpub'd manuscripts. "Adventurous literary YA fantasy seeks strong-willed but romantic female protagonist willing to be chased by dragons and spend a lot of time with an angsty bad boy."

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  4. That looks awesome! I wish my library was that cool :P

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  5. Love the dating profiles! But I think Books 7 and 8 got swapped around...

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    1. Thank you! And, yes, you're right. Whoops! My mistake. :)

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  6. I saw this viral post and sent it my own library, who set up the display this week! I picked up a book marked as "Chick Lit" and have to admit, it was fun and different than my usual reading material.

    What a great idea!

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  8. This is such a cute idea! I had never heard of this until now. Although I don't go to the library very often, I would definitely frequent my visits if we had something like this :)

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  9. Book 3 is definitely Twilight. I don't know the rest. =P

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