Reading Trails lets you create a “trail” (basically a slideshow) of books you’ve read that fit a theme of your choosing — favorite books, scary ones, or with much sophisticated topics. You can explain the theme, and then briefly write about each book. It’s super easy to add a screenshot of each book’s front cover.

If one of your chosen books “intersects” (is also mentioned) in a trail created by someone else, that’s indicated so you can look at that slideshow if you want. People can also leave comments, though they don’t appear to be moderated (but I might be wrong on that).

I don’t think there’s any question that short “book talks” in the classroom are a far better way for students to hear what their friends are reading. And if students are going to write much about the books they’ve read, something much more in the line of a “response to literature” piece is much better than a next-to-useless typical book report.

However, I could see having students create a reading trail that could be posted and shared with students in other classes — either in the same school or in another one (for example, in our International Sister Classes Project). It’s just another opportunity to have an authentic audience. Each book trail is embeddable in a blog or website, or you can just post the url address.

Thanks to Mashable for the tip.