Scholastic Launches ‘this is teen’ Virtual Book Club

By Maryann Yin on Galley Cat, April 13, 2011

Scholastic has partnered with SCVNGR, a location-based mobile gaming application platform, to create this is teen, a smartphone and Facebook-focused program to connect teens with some of their favorite teen fiction writers and books.

SCVNGR will develop book-related challenges at participating bookstores for this is teen users to solve with their smartphones; users will win points and also enter prize sweepstakes. The Facebook page will launch on April 26th along with Meg Cabot‘s new paranormal trilogy, Abandon. The ‘this is teen Live‘ tour will hit New York, San Francisco, Chicago, Boston, and Miami with authors Meg Cabot, Libba Bray, and Maggie Stiefvater starting May 24th.

Vice president of marketing Stacy Lellos had explained: “Our goal with ‘this is teen‘ is to create a destination and a community for readers—a virtual book club experience where the conversation starts with books. ‘this is teen‘ is about going where teens are and harnessing the connectivity of Facebook, the in-world exploration of SCVNGR, and the intensity that exists between readers and their favorite authors in order to create a fully interactive, reader-driven experience.”