You may have noticed the Book Scavenger website has a new look! I can hardly believe it, but it’s been over six years since I launched this website and the game for the publication of Book Scavenger in 2015. Six years!!!
At the Book Scavenger launch party at Linden Tree bookstore.
Back then, I had no idea if anyone would read Book Scavenger, let alone want to play a version of the game in the book. But I kept thinking about how if I had read Book Scavenger when I was a kid, I would have wanted the game to be real. And the first thing I would have done after finishing the book would have been to look it up and see if it was. So I wanted something to exist for other readers like me.
To launch the game, I asked my publisher if they’d be willing to give me 50 advance copies of Book Scavenger with the plan to giveaway one copy to a reader in each of the 50 states, with the hope that the recipient would read the book, like the book, hide the book, and then post a clue on the website for others to find. My publisher loved the idea, and so we did the giveaway. A book went to each state, and I waited. Soon enough–copies were hidden! And then found! And more were hidden and found, and so on and so forth until now nearly 20,000 tracking numbers have been requested and books have been scavenged in Iran, Australia, Japan, Canada, Spain, China, France, Chile . . . so many different places around the world!
I am so grateful to all of you–the young readers, the teachers, the librarians, the parents, the booksellers, everyone who has embraced my books and continues to recommend them to others. There have been times I’ve thought maybe I should retire the website and game because it does take a bit to maintain, and I often feel like I’m falling short there, but then I get a nice message from one of you, or see a new hidden book post, and I’m reminded of my kid self, the one I wrote Book Scavenger for and the one I had in mind when I launched the game, and I think, I can’t stop now. As long as you are out there enjoying my books and wanting to play the game, then I want to try and keep it going for you the best that I can.
So after six years, I decided it was time for a refresh. Take a look around–there’s some new content and a few fun surprises for you to find as well . . . A huge thank you to Websy Daisy for designing the website for me!
I hope you like it!
Jennifer Chambliss Bertman
