Back to school season brought fun new developments to Booksource from an exciting update to Booksource Classroom to our Starting and Refreshing a Classroom Library webinars. But perhaps the defining moment came from a group of students in Massachusetts who encapsulate all that Booksource is about.

In an effort to help teachers improve what we believe to be the most important component of a successful classroom, we held a Classroom Libraries Giveaway asking educators to send in photos of their classroom libraries with descriptions covering how they choose to organize their titles. After garnering 280 total responses, one in particular stood out.

Caitlyn Kewriga prompted her 5th grade class to write her entry with their eyes set on the ultimate prize: a customized classroom library filled with titles valued up to $500 + a barcode scanner for their Booksource Classroom account. The results were, in a word, heartwarming.

Written by Mrs. Kewriga’s 5th grade students: Our class is thrilled that Booksource is giving us this opportunity to enter this competition. There is a corner of our classroom dedicated to our library. In our library our books are organized in bins and labeled by genre. We currently use the Booksource app to check our books in and out. We even have a classroom librarian. It is the librarian’s job to check the books in, and to make sure that the library looks organized. Although our space is inviting, our books are aging. The Booksource app is great, but not always accessible for us kids since it is on Mrs. Kewriga’s iPad. Our class would greatly benefit from winning this competition. In Mrs.Kewriga’s homeroom library the books are organized in bins by genre. Each genre is assigned a color coded sticker. There is a sticker on the bin and on each book. The color coded stickers help us know what genre books are. In addition to chapter books, we also have picture books such as the Guinness Book of World Records. In the library, we have two chairs to help us read comfortably. We also have a table so kids can catch up on unfinished work. We received bookshelves from DonorsChoose.org! They are a great place to store our books. The set up of the library is a very inviting place if you’re having a stressful day, but we could use some new books without any damage. We need new refreshed books. We are Mrs. Kewriga’s students, and in our library, books are tattered, destroyed, some are also folded over or words are ripped off pages. We would like some new books, so Mrs. Kewriga doesn’t go out of her way to buy new books with her own hard earned money. We would like the $500 of new books because our class loves to read. We also have a 1,000 book challenge where we are competing against the other three classes on our team, to see who can read 1,000 books first. Having new aesthetically pleasing books would help motivate us to win. As you can see we could really use new books. We would deeply appreciate those books. We use the Booksource app on Mrs. Kewriga’s iPad to sign our books in and out. We would be really grateful if we got the scanner. The Booksource app is very good for checking out books. It is very simple and organized. A lot of kids want to check out books that they see in our library, and this app is perfect for it. Our teacher Mrs. K. has a nice library but some of her books are ripped or have missing pages or covers and are hard to scan. It is hard when Mrs. K. is absent because we don’t have her iPad, so having the scanner would really benefit our class. There are a few reasons why need a scanner. When, if Mrs. K. is busy, and we have found her iPad, we have to wait for her for a long time to put her iPad passcode in. If she’s not available we might forget to tell Mrs. K. at the end of the day that we want to check out a book. We need the scanner really bad especially when Mrs. K. is out. We would be so grateful because we don’t have her iPad when she’s out. The scanner would help very much. As you all see we really think that $500 of new books and the scanner would be extremely useful. Our class would greatly appreciate these rewards. The new books would refresh our supply of books and the scanner would be so convenient. Hopefully our classroom can be a better place for all of us. We will be very thankful, we will spend our time in the library wisely. We will also take very good care of the library and the books in Mrs. Kewriga’s class so kids from years to come can enjoy them. Thank you for this opportunity.

While they weren’t selected to win our random drawing, they were runners up. So in addition to sending them a scanner, we decided to provide a nice surprise and reward her class for being so thoughtful and passionate about reading. We allowed each of her students to pick one book to put on a wish list and we’re gifting them the whole list!

Mrs. Kewriga and her class were so excited that they sent us this video reply in which Mrs. K reveals the news. (Warning: clicking play below may inspire you to hug the nearest human and tell them that goodness exists.)