Book Trailers for K-12

"Creating a community of avid readers, one video at a time"

How do you select books to read? Do you use the jacket cover? Word of mouth? Reading lists? Which comes first, reading a book or watching a movie made from it? We do not believe it has to be an 'either-or' choice. Book trailers are short, minute and a half to two-minute videos that introduce the basic storyline and in which the story is re-enacted with similar artistic and creative decisions made by the director as to what parts of the story are presented.

Digital Booktalk, a UCF Showcase of Undergraduate Research Excellence (SURE) Grand Prize Winner, is the result of collaborative efforts between to professors from the University of Central Florida: Drs. Robert Kenny from the School of Visual Arts & Design and Glenda Gunter from the College of Education Educational Technology & e-Learning Programs, who developed the curriculum in conjunction with Orange County Schools in Orlando, Fl. The conceptual design is based on research into what motivates reluctant and striving readers to select, read, and complete books.

We are pleased to welcome Circle of Seven Productions (COS) as a marketing/production partner. COS is the owner of the trademark for the term "book trailer", invented the concept in 2002 as a marketing tool for book publishers... just as we were simultaneously developing our digital booktalk concept for K-12 schools. We feel that joining forces with COS is a natural progression and is the result of our parallel efforts in producing the best quality book trailers for the classroom. We are excited about this new venture and already have reaped positive results. COS has provided, and will continue to provide, quality trailers for the project. Take a look at the trailers for Thirteenth Princess and Chessie Bligh as two wonderful examples. Look for new and exciting things to come as we integrate our efforts as the project evolves into the Young Readers' Program.

Currently, 73 trailer titles have been posted to the site.

You find a trailer, just enter its exact title in the search box provided at the top right of this page. Alternatively, you may click on the Browse Books link in the Navigation Bar.

TEACHERS: If you register for this site you wil have access to the UB the Director link at the top of this page, which provides our curriculum model, teaches you how to visualize the books being read and how to utilize the story invention process to create your own video book trailers. Click here to SUGGEST-A-BOOK and send us the names of books for which you would like for us to produce a trailer.