If you are looking for a simple way to keep your chapter focused and engaged all year, Chapter of the Year is a great place to start. It gives your students a clear goal while helping you build a strong, consistent program.

The Chapter of the Year competition recognizes chapters that show strong engagement throughout the school year by earning points in areas such as meetings, service projects, competition participation, public relations, and adviser involvement. Based on total points, chapters can earn distinctions ranging from Honor Roll to the top Chapter of the Year award. Participating is a meaningful way to highlight your students’ commitment to literacy and leadership while keeping your chapter active and goal-oriented. Advisers can set their chapter up for success by planning ahead, choosing a clear points goal, and keeping organized documentation of meetings, events, and participation throughout the school year. It is important to track points regularly using the official form, label all materials with the correct activity numbers, and plan ahead for the final submission, which must be typed, printed, bound, and submitted before TomeCon. Many chapters find it helpful to assign a student leader to help track activities and collect documentation, making the process much smoother by the end of the year.

When you approach it with a simple plan and steady effort, Chapter of the Year becomes less about a final award and more about building a thriving chapter your students can be proud of. Summer is a great time to familiarize yourself with the COY tracking form and get inspired for the school year ahead!

Learn  more on the  Chapter of the Year info page. 

There is much to look forward to in the 2026-2027 school year with Tome Society as we Capture Curiosity through our new Tome Book Award selections. Families, teachers, and supporters can preview the full lists on the Books page and even get a head start by reading the August Books of the Month with the children in their lives.

This year’s August selections include The Girl Who Kept the Castle by Ryan Graudin for Club Tome (grades 2-5); Weirdo by Tony Weaver and The Tenth Mistake of Hank Hooperman by Gennifer Choldenko for Junior Tome (grades 6-8); and The Stranded by Sarah Daniels and The Davenports by Krystal Marquis for Tome Society (grades 9-12). Many adults in our community also enjoy reading titles from the high school list for their own personal reading.

TomeCon 2027 will take place on March 9, 2027 at the Classic Center in Athens, Georgia. This annual event gives students the chance to share their hard work in reading, writing, and creative projects while connecting with other Tome members and the authors they love. If you are interested in volunteering or sponsoring the event, we would love to hear from you.

We are also already reading for the 2027-2028 Book Award lists. If you enjoy reading and would like to help review potential titles this summer, visit the volunteers page to check out the TBR list and sign up for a book.

Thank you for supporting young readers and helping cultivate a love of reading in the year ahead. Your involvement helps bring our vision to life: to inspire a culture where young readers embrace lifelong literacy through meaningful engagement with great books, fellow readers, and the authors behind the stories they love.

​As students enter their junior and senior years, they often begin thinking more intentionally about their achievements, future goals, and the legacy they want to leave behind. Tome Society offers two meaningful opportunities to recognize their commitment to reading, leadership, and scholarship: the Tau Omicron Mu Epsilon Honors Society and the Dale Pratt Memorial Scholarship.

Tau Omicron Mu Epsilon honors students who have consistently invested in their growth through Tome activities during high school, earning at least 30 Tome points while maintaining a strong academic record. Inducted students are recognized for their dedication to literacy and leadership and receive an honor medal at TomeCon that may be worn at graduation if permitted by their school.

The Dale Pratt Memorial Scholarship, created in memory of a faithful Tome Society volunteer and literacy advocate, awards $500 annually to a graduating senior who is both an active Tome member and an inductee of Tau Omicron Mu Epsilon. This scholarship celebrates academic effort, character, and a genuine love of reading.

Many qualified students simply need an adviser’s encouragement to apply. By sharing these opportunities with your upperclassmen, you help them gain well-deserved recognition, strengthen college applications, and finish their Tome journey with distinction.

We are grateful to share an exciting new step forward for our organization!

We have officially established a fund with the North Georgia Community Foundation - a trusted nonprofit that has been strengthening our region since 1985 by connecting generous donors with meaningful causes and investing in the long-term health of our communities. 

This partnership allows us to steward donations with excellence, transparency, and long-term impact. Through their secure giving platform, you can now support our mission in a simple and meaningful way through one-time or recurring gifts.
The mission of Tome Student Literacy Society is to cultivate lifelong readers through encouraging literature, and this fund helps ensure that work continues to grow and reach more students for years to come.

Through our new fund, you can:

• Give through a secure online portal
• Receive a tax-deductible receipt
• Donate in multiple ways, including cash or appreciated stock

Please consider supporting our mission with a donation today:
https://ngcf.fcsuite.com/erp/donate/create/fund?funit_id=10273 

Thank you for being part of this mission and for helping us continue to inspire a culture where young readers embrace lifelong literacy through meaningful engagement with great books, fellow readers, and the authors behind the stories they love.

With gratitude,
The Tome Team

​Tome Society offers a rich variety of opportunities for students to grow in literacy, creativity, and critical thinking. With 20 individual competitions, the Reading Bowl team competition, and two chapter-level competitions, advisers often ask: How do I decide which competitions are the best fit for my students? The answer depends on your chapter’s goals, schedule, and the level of commitment your students are ready to make.

The Reading Bowl is one of Tome’s most rewarding - and most rigorous - competitions. Students who participate commit to reading all of the tested books on their chapter’s Tome Book Award list. Throughout the school year, they will take three online tests that measure comprehension and retention.
The top four teams earn the exciting opportunity to travel to TomeCon, where they compete in person for the Reading Bowl Championship. This experience builds teamwork, accountability, and deep engagement with literature, but it does require steady dedication from both students and advisers across the entire school year.

If a full-year team commitment feels like too much for your current season, your chapter can still participate meaningfully - and successfully - through Tome’s individual competitions.
Each chapter may submit one entry per competition category for judging. These competitions allow students to showcase their unique talents in areas such as writing, media creation, and art while working within a manageable timeframe.
An added benefit: every competition entry and winner earns points toward the Chapter of the Year award, allowing your chapter to build recognition even without participating in Reading Bowl.

Many advisers find success by selecting a combination of opportunities that match their students’ interests and availability. Some chapters fully embrace the Reading Bowl experience, while others focus on individual competitions, or thoughtfully incorporate both. Whatever path you choose, each competition provides meaningful ways for students to grow as readers, thinkers, and communicators - and helps your chapter thrive within the larger Tome community.

​As this school year comes to a close, now is a great time to begin preparing your Tome Society chapter for a strong start in the fall. A little planning now can help your students feel confident, excited, and ready to engage from the very first meeting.
Consider assigning summer reading from the first Reading Bowl exam list to your team. Getting an early start helps students stay on pace and reduces pressure during the busy fall months.
You may also want to let your club members know the August Books of the Month so they can begin reading before your first meeting. This helps create immediate momentum and encourages meaningful discussion right away.
Spring is also an ideal time to vote for officers for the upcoming school year. Giving student leaders time to prepare allows them to step confidently into their roles and begin contributing ideas early.
Fundraising planning can begin now as well. Brainstorm ideas with your students for raising funds for chapter dues or TomeCon expenses. When students help generate ideas, they often feel more invested in the success of the plan.
Take time at your final meeting to talk through the competition options available next year. Helping students understand the different opportunities encourages participation and helps them begin thinking about where their interests and talents fit best.
Finally, review the Chapter of the Year document together. Set a goal as a chapter and create a simple plan for how you will work toward reaching your points target throughout the year.
Thoughtful preparation now can make next year more organized, more engaging, and more enjoyable for both you and your students. Explore the Tome Society website to learn more. 

By Becca Hamby

Hi! I’m Becca Hamby — Tome Society co-founder, former high school librarian, and current homeschool mom of three. The two questions I hear most often from other moms are: "Do you have any book recommendations for my kids?" and "How can I get my kids to want to read for fun?" For the first question, I always point them to the current and past Tome Society Book Award lists. In this post, I’m tackling the second — how to help kids get hooked on reading and discover the joy of stories that keep them turning pages.

Tip #1: Start with Great Books
If kids aren’t reading well-written books with page-turning plots, it’s no wonder stories can’t compete with all the other entertainment options in our world. At Tome Society, we carefully select titles for the Tome Society Book Award that are recently published, high-quality, and high-interest. If a book doesn’t make us want to keep reading, we know it won’t grab the kids either.
If you’re not sure where to start, pull up your child’s grade-level Book Award list with them and let them choose three titles that look most interesting. Then do a quick internet search together to read the summaries and decide where to begin.
Here are a few tried-and-true favorites that have hooked my own kids:
Tome Book Award Authors Guaranteed to Kick-Start a Reading Obsession
(Check age-appropriateness for your child.)

• Gary Schmidt
• Jennifer Nielsen
• Alan Gratz
• Taryn Souders 
• Gordon Korman 
• McCall Hoyle 

Classic Picks We’ve Loved

• My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George
• Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls
• Hatchet by Gary Paulsen
• The Black Stallion by Walter Farley
• The Island Stallion by Walter Farley
• Swiss Family Robinson by Johann David Wyss

• Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery
• Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O’Dell
• The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare

​Tip #2: Make It a Family Thing
My family loves listening to audiobooks together in the car. Over the years, we’ve enjoyed everything from compelling, kid-friendly biographies of famous men and women to the Harry Potter series — and, of course, plenty of Tome Book Award titles. On a recent road trip, we binged the first book of The Hunger Games series.
Our family rule is simple: as long as Mom and the two older kids are in the car, we listen — we can catch Dad up later. If starting a family audiobook feels a little awkward at first, make it special. Try something like, “We’re going to start listening to one of my favorite books from childhood — and to celebrate, we’ll grab ice cream while we listen.” A few bumps at the start are normal, but pick a great book and stick with it. I promise — they won’t complain for long. 
If audiobooks aren’t your jam, another excellent option is family read-aloud time. We’ve done this since the kids were little, and the books have grown up with them. It was Goodnight Moon and Little Blue Truck when they were toddlers, and now we spend a few minutes before bed escaping into Narnia, Middle-Earth, and other fascinating worlds whenever we can. Even just a few shared reading moments each week will pay off in a big way.
However your family finds time to do it, experiencing stories together not only builds a shared love of reading but also sparks some of the best conversations. For instance, while reading The Hunger Games, we found ourselves asking: Do we see instances of violence as entertainment in our own culture? What parallels was the author drawing between Panem and Ancient Rome? Questions like these show how powerful shared stories can be — they open the door to deeper conversations you might not have had otherwise.
What book do you want to share with your kids?

Tip #3: Make It a Habit
To truly get hooked on a story, kids need consistent time inside that story. Set a goal of at least 20 minutes of reading a day — and stick to it. If motivation is an issue, connect reading with clear boundaries: no video games until the reading is done. If your family’s schedule makes daily reading tricky, try a weekly goal instead — for example, 100 minutes over the course of the week or no Saturday morning screen time. You can also frame it as a reward: read 20 minutes every day this week and celebrate with ice cream on Friday night.
The method is flexible, but the expectation should be steady. Frequent reading is the key to helping kids truly engage with their books.

Tip #4: Try Immersive Reading
Immersive Reading is the practice of reading a print book while listening to the audiobook at the same time. My kids often use this method in our homeschool when tackling more challenging texts. For example, my 6th-grade daughter was able to enjoy the unabridged versions of Robinson Crusoe and Oliver Twist last year because she wasn’t bogged down by the difficulty of the language.
When kids are just learning to read — or when they struggle — the act of decoding can make reading feel like a chore. But we want reading to be a joy! Immersive Reading removes that barrier, allowing kids to dive straight into the story without the battle. An added bonus is that they both see and hear the words pronounced correctly, which builds vocabulary and strengthens fluency.
In our home, Immersive Reading has been a game-changing tool for unlocking age-appropriate stories that might otherwise feel out of reach.
At the end of the day, what matters most is that our kids see reading as a gift, not a burden. Tools like immersive reading, family reading time, daily habits, and the right kind of stories can help us open that door for them. When we point them toward great books, give them a little support, and cheer them on, we’re helping them unlock something that will last a lifetime—a true love of books.

The It List has a new name! Now called the Tome Society Book Award list, this list is comprised of the best recently published, PG books for students in grades 2-12.  
We are excited to announce the official 2024-2025 Tome Society Book Award winners! 

Tome Society (Grades 9-12)
Artifice by Sharon Cameron
Clementine and Danny Save the World (and Each Other) by Livia Blackburne
Curses and Other Buried Things by Caroline George
Defy the Night by Brigid Kemmerer
Last Girl Breathing by Court Stevens
League of Liars by Astrid Scholte
Powerless by Lauren Roberts
Rise of the Vicious Princess by CJ Redwine
Silver in the Bone by Alexandra Bracken
Take by Jennifer Bradbury
Tempest of Tea by Hafsah Faizal
The Silent Unseen by Amanda McCrina
The Weight of Everything by Marcia Argueta Mickelson
The Wide Starlight by Nicole Lesperance
Thieves Gambit by Kayvion Lewis 
This is Not a Personal Statement by Tracy Badua 
Tress of the Emerald Sea by Brandon Sanderson
Unraveller by Frances Hardinge
Unsinkable by Jenni L. Walsh
Wishtress by Nadine Brandes 

Junior Tome (grades 6-8)
Children of the Fox by Kevin Sands
Farewell Cuba, Mi Isla by Alexandra Diaz
Hamra and the Jungle of Memories by Hanna Alkaf
Hands by Torrey Maldonado
Heroes by Alan Gratz
The Labors of Hercules Beal by Gary D. Schmidt
The Patron Thief of Bread by Lindsay Eagar
The Switch by Roland Smith
Uprising by Jennifer A. Nielsen
Where the Black Flowers Bloom by Ronald Smith

Club Tome (grades 2-5)
Finally Seen by Kelly Yang
Honestly Elliott by Gillian McDunn
Millie by McCall Hoyle
Nothing Else But Miracles by Kate Albus
The Book of Stolen Dreams by David Farr
The Boy Who Met a Whale by Nizrana Farook 
The Elephant Girl by James Patterson & Ellen Banda-Aaku
The Mystery of the Radcliffe Riddle by Taryn Souders
The School for Whatnots by Margaret Peterson Haddix
Turtles of the Midnight Moon by Maria Jose Fitzgerald