What is a book trailer?
Described as a "video advertisement" for books and “a convergence of story and the arts”, the book trailer bases its form on the popular culture genre of the movie trailer. Distinct from a book talk, book trailers do not summarize books. Instead, they attempt to mimic movie trailers by strategically combining various multimodal resources such as video, to “hook” audiences without revealing the entire plot.
Book Trailers in the Classroom
A growing number of teachers and librarians have begun to incorporate this media-based genre into their reading initiatives with students.
Professional Book Trailers
Many book trailers have been made by professional media producers, commissioned by authors or publishing companies with the specific goal to advertising and promote sales of the book.
Reader/Fan-made Examples
These examples tend to emphasize the book's content, including quotations as well as phrases and questions that highlight the books' themes.
Student-made examples:
Teacher & Librarian-made Models:
Book Trailers of Select Americas Award Book Recipients:
The Americas Award selects books that portray Latin American, the Caribbean, and Latinos living in the United States in authentic, culturally rich ways. The following is a sampling of reader-made book trailers in order of the year the book was released.