Break for Books, the annual book sale run by the IRC, will be held this year for the sophomore class during all periods today.

“We hold break for books twice a year, once for sophomores and once for freshman. This year, the sophomore class will be coming in with their english classes, first,” said IRC media specialist, Ms. Sherry Baehr.

Sophomores will sit through about twenty minutes of a book talk, explaining what the available books are about. They’ll have the rest of the period to browse through books and decide which ones to buy. Books are available for as little as two dollars.

“We borrowed this event from other schools and have continued doing it because research shows that kids read when the get to choose books. Our goal is to have various books from different genres,” said Ms.Baehr.

Although Break for Books is the most popular and fun event of the entire year in the IRC, Baehr reveals that it is a lot of work, which is why it is only limited to sophomores and freshman.

“It’s a lot of work and money, but we tried to extend this event to juniors. They weren’t as enthusiastic about it. Freshman and sophomore classes just have a lot of time for independent reading,” said Baehr.

The books available range from ‘The Beginning of Everything’ by Robert Schneider to ‘Unbroken’ by Laura Hillenbrand. An immensely popular autobiography is also available, ‘This Star Won’t Go Out: The Life and Words of Esther Earl,’ which inspired John Green’s famous novel ‘The Fault in Our Stars’.

“We try to choose books that are paperback — because we want them to be cheap for everyone, but also books that are really interesting and kids would want to read. We keep a list of books that would appeal to them which is really different from the summer reading list. That’s when we want all the new, fresh books,” said Baehr.

After all sophomore English classes have attended, books will be available to all grades on Monday, January 12th.