Fugitive Book Characters

My first real passive program at my first real librarian job. I came up with this scavenger hunt by tweaking a program blogged about by Carrie @ The Lion is a Bookworm. However, instead of just making it a scavenger hunt for character silhouettes, I changed mine up a bit.

Mine turned out to be a plea for help from the library to the kids. Several dangerous book characters had escaped their books and needed to be caught. I hid multiple (2-3) pictures of the characters throughout the youth area and had the kids find them, writing their locations (with or without help) on their wanted posters (sheets with the images, names, and crimes of the characters). I made sure they understood that the characters found on book covers were actually impostors, and thus did not count.

The crimes went a little over the kids' heads, but the parents thought they were funny. For example, Winnie the Pooh stole honey, Where's Waldo had committed international espionage, etc. Even kids who can't read or write yet really like it.

Both kids and parents (and staff!) love participating in the hunt and sometimes get really excited by where the characters are hiding (Spiderman is hanging off the clock). We give out little prize bags (nothing exciting), which they like too. Overall, it's been a great success.