Just before Thanksgiving, I had the pleasure of hosting a The Secret Garden book club with almost 25 young readers whose ages ranged from 7 to 14. It was one of our “mixed” book clubs that celebrates the kind of book that is especially good for family read aloud – a book that everyone will…
Tag: book club
The Book of Three Book Club
Last month I had the pleasure of reading The Book of Three by Lloyd Alexander with almost twenty young readers. It was a tremendously good book club because, after a year and a half of reading together, we have developed a common vernacular and culture. It isn’t enough to discuss the story arc or character…
Pride and Prejudice Young Ladies Literary Tea
For our fourth Young Ladies Literary Tea, we read Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. Really, could we have chosen a more perfect book for a literary tea? An advantage of doing these teas monthly is that we can settle into a rhythm. As usual, we went to the home of my friend Giovanna, some of…
Hobbit Club: September Meeting
In our September Hobbit Club meeting, we drank Dragon Eye Red Ale beer that Greg and I brewed, we had birthday cupcakes for Frodo and Bilbo, and we laughed until our sides hurt. It was a party for Hobbits! The reading for this month was the Joseph Pearce commentary, Frodo’s Journey. At this point in…
Book Club Questions
Sometimes the hardest part about leading a book club is getting the conversation going. While every book will have its own relevant questions and topics for discussion, it is nice to have a cheat sheet you can consult when the conversation dries up. Here are a dozen of my favorites: What did you like most…
Rose Campbell Young Ladies Literary Tea
In this third Young Ladies Literary Tea, we returned to Alcott. In an unplanned twist, our general Eight Cousins book club got upgraded to a Young Ladies Literary Tea for the Rose Campbell books. Alcott’s writing is so safe that I decided to convert this to one of our teas because I knew that it…
Freckles & A Girl of the Limberlost Young Ladies Literary Tea
After the success of my Young Ladies Literary Tea for An Old Fashioned Girl, I had high hopes for our second meeting, Freckles & A Girl of the Limberlost. Due to some logistical complications, we had to move the tea to my house. As I said in my last article, this is a grand experiment…
An Old Fashioned Girl Young Ladies Literary Tea
Over the last sixteen months, I have marveled at the way that my book club for young readers has grown and changed. All of this has been a grand experiment, and I have learned so much about what works well for us and what could be improved. One of the things I always wanted to…
Hobbit Club: August Meeting
I do not know what I did to get so blessed. In all likelihood, nothing. God knew what Greg and I needed, and He just asked us to obey His promptings and follow His lead. And, by His grace, He has led us into a Hobbit Club which can only be a gift from Him….
Book Club: The Winged Watchman
My review of Hilda van Stockum’s “The Winged Watchman” can be found here. This book was a pretty straight-forward affair. The nine attendees were 12-16 years old, all had read the book at least once, and all were reasonably comfortable with each other. Ok, they were more than reasonably comfortable. We were arguing, laughing, arguing…