A Family Of Readers: A Book Club Is Born

A few weeks ago I shared here what my family was reading.  We've had a pretty good summer of reading so far -and I'm hoping it continues.

Everyone has finished up what they were reading before and moved on to other things.

But the most exciting thing on the reading front is the start of Little Sister's book club with some friends.

A few weeks ago another mother contacted me wanting some help on starting a book club.  Her oldest daughter and my youngest daughter will both be starting fourth grade in the fall, and before the summer slips away from us we met to get a few things organized.

The book club met twice so far, and we are off to a good start.  Before we actually saw the girls and discussed anything, there were a few things we lined up.

First, we (and by this I mean the other mother, Mandy), had to get a few things organized.  

I gathered a stack of books together that might be possible selections for the girls to read.

We looked over our options, made our selections, and tried to pick from a variety of genres.

Mandy created fliers to send to a group of girls. Both our daughters picked four friends we thought might enjoy participating and we spent time delivering the invitations.

Since the books were listed on the fliers, each girl was responsible for finding their own book and having it read before we met to discuss.

Mandy is hosting the book club each week and preparing an art/craft activity for the girls to do related to the book.

Our first week we read The Candy Touch and the girls used candy molds and melted chocolates to create their own candy.

Last week we discussed I Survived the Hindenburg Disaster, 1937. The activity was painting using a watercolors and salt which created a chemical reaction.

I am in charge of the discussion.  As the girls work on their activity, I ask questions that I hope are open enough and lend themselves to discussion.  Some girls are taking turns making quiz questions for the books, with each girl to answer correctly getting a sucker as a treat.  

I'm loving this little group. My older daughters have each come once and beg to get to come along.  This makes me feel incredibly guilty that I didn't start something like this when they were this age, and I probably missed the boat on a book club for them. 

Although we only have two more book club selections planned (The Talented Clementine by Sara Pennypacker and So B. It by Sarah Weeks), I am hoping that the girls enjoy it enough that this is something we continue once school resumes.