How to Link a Contest to a Specific Book List

Created by Ace Turner, Modified on Thu, 14 May at 3:12 PM by Ace Turner

By default, students can use any book in Book Taco to earn credit in a contest. Linking a custom book list changes that: only books from the selected list count toward the contest goal. This is useful when you want to focus reading around a specific theme, unit, or reading program.

Step 1: Create the book list first
Step 2: Open the contest form
Step 3: Select your book lists
What students see

Step 1: Create the book list first

Before linking a list to a contest, the list must already exist. Go to Teacher Panel → Book Taco Library → Manage Lists and create the list you want to use. For instructions, see How to Create a Reading List in the Book Taco Library.

You can link more than one list to the same contest, so if you have lists organized by level or topic, you can combine them.

Step 2: Open the contest form

Go to Teacher Panel → Contests → New Contest to create a new contest, or open an existing one and click Edit. The book list option is in Step 1: Goals.

Step 3: Select your book lists

In Step 1, scroll to the Optional: Contest Books section near the bottom. You will see two options:

Any Book (default) — students earn credit for any book in Book Taco.
Select Book Lists — restricts the contest to specific lists.

Click Select Book Lists. A dropdown appears showing all the custom lists you have created. Select one or more lists from the dropdown, then continue to the next steps to finish setting up the contest.

You can select multiple lists at once. If your students are at different reading levels, link one list per level so everyone has books that count toward the goal.

What students see

Students do not see a separate notification about the book list restriction — they simply earn credit as usual, but only for books that belong to the linked lists. Reading a book outside the list will not count toward the contest goal.

On the contest monitor, the linked lists are shown in a Books That Count Toward This Contest carousel so you can always see which titles are in scope.