Dystopian Book Display

With March comes many themes and ideas for a book display at your library: March Maddness, St. Patrick's Day, the first day of spring, and even the mathematically-inclined Pi Day (3/14).  This year, however, March marked yet another release of a YA book-to-movie translation: Divergent by Veronica Roth and great theme choice of futuristic books (including dystopian, apocalyptic, and post-apocalyptic).

The recently released series ender, Allegiant, sparked high levels of discussion and controversy among fans, whether they loved or hated Roth's writing decisions.  My own reaction/review of the book can be found here.  The two events paired together make the entire series a hot commodity within the library and, thus, all dystopian books highly desirable for those attempting to hold onto this type of universe before the movie's release or after the book's ending (or both).

Limited resources paired with limited time often means books displays are not as "Look at ME!" as I would hope.  This month was no different, but some clever allocation of cardboard and paper strips made this an eye-catching shelf and a popular one at that.

"Can you Survive the Future?"

Design

The title "Can you Survive the Future?" was simply printed from Word using a futuristic text and was the easiest part of the display.

The "ruins" in the bottom left corner is medium-sized Amazon box cut to resemble a brick wall and then painted grey with black dividing lines.  Though it does not show up in the photo, I used a sponge to give the "wall" texture and appear older.

The lines are representative of a computer motherboard, inspired by a recently acquired book Freak of Nature by Julia Crane, which uses similar line design at the beginning of each chapter.  These were created by small dots cut from an Ellison maker and strips of paper measuring approximately 1.5 cm.

Side View

Putting these two elements together reveals a meshing of a crumbling society with little time, energy, or resources to beautify and a technologically advanced society that places progress above freedom.  The book selections were all futuristic in some manner, but differed greatly in the world they present.

Reception

 Within minutes of this display being finished, someone was already looking over the books.  I have had to refill several of the slots within the past day and am pleased that this is popular with the library patrons.