While walking through the halls, students pass by all the reading posters outside of each classroom, encountering titles ranging from The Cat in the Hat to AP Lang papers to Eat, Pray, Love.

After seeing the book posters at other schools, English teacher Madeleine Deliee spoke with English teacher Jennifer Beach over the summer about bringing the idea to WS. When the school year rolled around, the book posters had their own spots right outside of each of their doors.

“It seemed like a great way to promote reading for pleasure, so I joined in and made my own sign,” said Beach.

Since then, the librarians have worked to make this display of book posters a school wide initiative. Head librarian Ché Ferch-Jablonski discussed the idea with the English department, and teachers decided to use the book posters throughout the school in order to encourage people to talk about the books they are reading.

“I would like to foster an environment of literacy at West Springfield,” said Ferch-Jablonski.

Many people are not aware that certain books exist unless they are introduced to them. While students have opportunities to read new books through the required reading, it is nice to step out of the realm of required reading and enter the realm of pleasurable reading.

Obstacles arise, however, when people are unable to find great books on their own and are thus discouraged from reading in general.

“There are so many good books that many of us have thought about reading, but have been hesitant to pick up without knowing someone who has already read it,” said Ferch-Jablonski.

Their goal in displaying these book titles is to introduce a variety of book titles to the student body. By displaying the book titles, students have the opportunity to ask their teachers about them in order to learn about new books. The introduction to these titles allows people to broaden their selection of reading material.

“There are so many wonderful books that let you experience the world in a different way,” said Deliee. “The posters are a nice way to showcase some of these perspectives.”