Picture Book Trailers: Nay? or Yay!

The G"olden" Book Days: Browsing the Library Shelves

When I was a kid (or as my kids would say ... in the "olden days")  we went to the library regularly to browse and select books to bring home. I remember the space as a safe and warm place. There was a small puppet theater in a carpeted space that was surrounded by shelves and shelves of picture books and as I aged, I expanded my explorations to the surrounding shelves where I discovered Pippi Longstocking, The Black Cauldron, and the Fairy Books of Many Colours. I discovered all my favourites simply by browsing the shelves. I flipped through the pages, often did judge a book by its cover and threw it in the book bag to go home and devour!! 

Browsing Kids Books Today: Amazon's "Look inside!", Book Blog Reviews and Picture Book Trailers

Browsing books looks a bit different today. Now - don't get me wrong - we still go to the library and enjoy being in that kind of space. We love the randomness of grabbing a book off the shelves and taking it home but this is by no means the only way my children and I browse books together. In my previous life - I was a librarian so I am a bit of a book browsing maniac. I love peeking around inside the sample pages of picture books on amazon. I adore children's book blogs, book lists, book reviews, book previews, and my guiltiest pleasure... book trailers. In fact, I'm always super disappointed when a new picture book doesn't have a book trailer and it's taken me a while to figure out why I feel this way but then I discovered... uh oh... I'm that annoying person who always says: 

"If you Liked the Movie..." 

Yep. I'm that annoying person. "Oh! If you liked the movie - you gotta read the book!" And it is this exact tendency in me that makes me love book trailers. It is the certainty of knowing that if I like the "preview" I will ADORE the book and if I'm entirely frank - this is usually true.

​So! Do you sit your kids down to watch book trailers with you? Does it make your kids more or less likely to want to read the book? I guess the question is, picture book trailers, nay? or yay!