Name this book-making contest

April 19, 2021 11:22 AM

My local public library plans to start a write and illustrate your own book contest geared toward students from elementary school through high school. But surely there's a better name than "Write and Illustrate Your Own Book Contest"? Suggestions, please?
posted by MonkeyToes to Writing & Language (12 answers total)

At the very least, change it to, "A contest to write and illustrate your own book". As it stands, it sounds like you're writing and illustrating a book contest.
posted by alex1965 at 11:35 AM on April 19, 2021 [5 favorites]

By "write and illustrate", do you mean that the result will be a picture book? Or are chapter books and so on also included?

If the intended result is a specific type, then you could use that to name the contest rather than multiple verbs. The Great Picture Book Contest, say.
posted by trig at 11:39 AM on April 19, 2021 [1 favorite]

When I was a kid in the early 80s, we had the same thing and the contest was just called "Young Authors."
posted by erst at 11:39 AM on April 19, 2021 [4 favorites]

"Make a Book Challenge"? "Your Book Contest"? "Be an Author"? "The (Children's) Booker Prize"?
posted by olopua at 12:22 PM on April 19, 2021

Response by poster: Update: Contest is for creating picture books suitable for reading aloud to little kids.
posted by MonkeyToes at 12:47 PM on April 19, 2021

[Something cute]: A storybook-writing contest for young authors [for kids, etc.]

Where "something cute" is something upbeat, imperative/declarative and related to or in some way evocative of storytelling, story time, etc.

Story Time! / Tell Us a Story! / You Tell It!
What Happens Next? / [And] Then What Happens?

Or just aim directly for millennial parents and call it "(Picture) Book It" and crib all your promotional aesthetics from Pizza Hut.
posted by wreckingball at 1:12 PM on April 19, 2021

Draw the book you'd like to read contest.
posted by BobTheScientist at 2:31 PM on April 19, 2021 [1 favorite]

I like to make books by hand and when searching the web, I am often confounded by the gambling meaning of "bookmaking". If the physical production of the book is part of the contest, you might want to go with binding or creating instead of "making".
posted by soelo at 2:44 PM on April 19, 2021 [1 favorite]

Bookarate!

You are the Publisher!

Editorous Rex!

Books that will haunt you!

Author! Author!
posted by parmanparman at 3:12 PM on April 19, 2021

Best answer: Once Upon a Contest
posted by paperback version at 4:28 PM on April 19, 2021 [1 favorite]

Show and Tell
Once Upon a Wow
Tell a Tale
posted by calgirl at 7:34 PM on April 19, 2021

I didn't have a name for this activity, but when I used to do this as an annual project as a school librarian, I read the kids The Library Mouse first. (It wasn't a contest, but kids who wanted to add their books to the library collection were able to.) So if you have a chance to read a book as part of the intro for this, that's what I'd recommend. It got a lot of students excited about the kinds of stories they could tell-- some if them hasn't really thought they could write nonfiction before and were delighted with the option.

For a title, how about "What's in a book?"
posted by Margalo Epps at 8:10 PM on April 29, 2021