2026 Contest Categories
Best in Visual/Virtual Display or Bulletin Board
Share your best visual or virtual Sora display. This could be anything from a compelling Zoom background to a unique bulletin board or towering display case.
Best in Social Media
Share how you promoted Sora across your social networks (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc.) to engage your school community.
Best Ongoing Outreach
Have you promoted Sora through ongoing outreach? Share how you’ve spread the word, whether by engaging parents and guardians, gaining faculty or admin support, or inspiring students. “Ongoing outreach” can mean a month-long theme, a special activity, or a year-round initiative to boost Sora engagement.
Best Use of Sora in the Classroom
Show us how you have integrated Sora into the classroom to support your learning objectives with lessons, activities, or assignments.
Best Student-Made Submission
Sora’s impact on your students fuels our work. Share how your students have shown their love for Sora and spread that love to their classmates. Maybe it was a fun video, presentation, or even a song! We welcome all mediums.
About School Stars
School Stars is a global contest aimed to celebrate how schools promote Sora. For 2026’s contest, we’re looking for how your school has promoted Sora in the 2025/2026 school year (July 2025 – Time of entry). Past entries have included videos, visual displays, bulletin boards, social media campaigns, and student-created projects. We think anything you do to promote Sora is awesome and we can’t wait to see how your school has entered its reading era in Sora.
See official rules
Our prizes will be announced in early 2023. Stay tuned!
2026 Prizes
Grand Prize Winner (1 winner)
$3,000 USD in Sora content credit
1,000 Handmade Sora Friendship Bracelets
Digital Winner Kit
Category Winner (5 winners, 1 per category):
$500 USD in Sora content credit
Digital Winner Kit
Category Runner-Up (5 winners, 1 per category):
$250 USD in Sora content credit
Digital Runner-Up Kit
Random Entrant Winner (5 winners, chosen at random):
$100 USD in Sora content credit
Check out our awesome 2026 winners!
Grand Prize Winner:
Pulaski County High School/Pulaski County
We wanted our students to know that the library is always open, always free for them 24/7. With that idea in mind, we created a display that showed off what Sora could do for them. We designed a giant receipt and printed it with our poster maker to show students that they can access our audiobook and ebook collection at any time and it doesn’t cost them a dime. The tabletop display can be seen as they enter the library and it showcases some of the books we have available currently on Sora. The display also includes some signs that remind students: “No lines. No late fees. No heavy lifting.” and “Check Out. Don’t Pay Up.” All the signs including the giant receipt have a QR code for students to scan with their phones as well as reminding students that have access to Sora on their student Chromebooks. The same signs on the display table have been hung up around the school in a variety of places. Lastly, we created a bookmark version of our receipt that includes the QR code as well. Read more…
Student Made Winner:
Hudson City Schools
Second grade students from Ellsworth Elementary wrote a skit, planned costumes, and filmed their Sora commercial, which will be shown to all students in the school during library class.
Social Media Winner:
Gwinnett County
This is a YouTube video I created using school resources to promote SORA. This explains how to access it, look up and checkout books, etc.
Classroom Winner:
Rondout School District 72
Audiobooks have grown in popularity, but our school’s data showed they were rarely used by students or teachers. As a school librarian, ensuring access to reading and informational resources is central to my work, so I set a goal to increase audiobook use this year. I developed a program to bring audiobooks into classrooms through Sora. Instead of selecting titles for students, I empowered them to choose from more than 200 options. I taught them how to search for topics in a novel database and then purchased the audiobooks they requested. To support engagement, I created a choice board of quiet activities students could complete while listening. In collaboration with teachers, we identified options that would work well in classrooms, including puzzles, word finds, paint-by-number art, knitting, card games, scratch art, sticker pictures, drawing, and other independent activities. The program was a tremendous success. Beyond classroom teachers, I also partnered with the Art teacher to provide audiobooks for seventh graders to enjoy while working on projects. Almost immediately, reluctant readers began asking to listen to their books, and audiobook circulation in Sora soared. Students who finished one audiobook eagerly requested another. To extend the impact, I shared Sora information with families through the school newsletter to encourage at-home listening. I also purchased a special collection of family-friendly read-alouds to promote borrowing during vacations and road trips. The program is sustainable and cost-effective. By primarily using the Cost Per Circulation (CPC) purchasing model, I was able to offer a wide variety of titles without exceeding the budget. Its success has ensured that teachers will continue integrating audiobooks into their classrooms. Read more…
Ongoing Outreach Winner:
St. Lawrence-Lewis BOCES
Created characters for each grade band: The Curator of Curiosity, Eddie the Raven, and Read Rover. Each character has a corresponding collection in Sora. Using shelf talkers, the characters comment on their selections. The curator shares trivia, Eddie shares quotes, and Read Rover gives recommendations. The two characters (Curator/Eddie) were then used to develop a trivia game and a guess the quote game which is being shared by English teachers in their classroom. As they progress through the games there are links back to selected collections in Sora. There is also a “What’s Your Reading Vibe” personality test I developed that identifies which collection best suites them based on their answers to various questions. The results link them to their chosen collection. I have attached a sample of the collections in Sora showing the curator collection and his shelf talker, as well as a character info page that was shared with educators. Here is the link to the website used to promote Sora to Highschool students: https://curatorofcuriosity.my.canva.site/hs-sora-page Read more…
Visual/Virtual Display Winner:
American Heritage Schools Palm Beach
I include Sora in our physical book displays. For example, this month we are doing a Dystopian March Madness. I include the physical books that students can check out of the library, but I also print book covers for books we have on Sora and include them in the display. I make it a point to include Sora books in each display that I make so that students think of our physical and digital collection that match the theme, remember that they can read anywhere!
Reach for the (School) Stars – Webinar
Christina Samek, OverDrive Outreach Specialist, and Sarah Sansbury, winner of the 2019 OverDrive School Stars program, discuss print and social media resources to engage students, parents, staff, and other members of the school community in low- and high-tech ways. No time? Tiny budget? Christina and Sarah share their favorite tips and success stories, and walk listeners through the hows and whys of submitting entries to the program.
Check out 2021’s winners
Gatlinburg-Pittman Jr. High School (Grand Prize)
Sally Helton, Library Media Specialist, let us know they had only recently adopted Sora at their school —launching the platform on March 1, 2021. Her team decided to borrow themes from the very popular March Madness craze to introduce Sora to students. They used targeted social promotion but their centerpiece was their March Madness-themed Sora “hype” video. Great work, team!
JCSP Library Project Digital Library
Librarian Lorna Vogelsang let first year students vote on their online class read by creating a vote tool on Teams (a student system) based on titles that were always available in their Sora collection. This inspired a rousing debate that spilled over online. According to Lorna, students “were able to see the power of their voice and their vote, because the winning title only won by two votes!”
Laurel Public Schools
Per Librarian Mikayla Hirschkorn, “Sora is such a fantastic resource for students wanting to check out books on sensitive topics while maintaining privacy.” The display, sent out via email, features some of these sensitive topics and linked directly to Sora for instant check-outs.
Durham Public Schools
Per Library Staff Kathryn McCullen, one of her 4th graders heard about School Stars and got right to work on this amazing and suspenseful video. What a talent!