I am now part of a book club. We haven't had our first meeting yet, but so far it's been kind of fun.
Over the course of this year, Gerry and Santino and I all realized that we have the same taste in books--mostly fantasy, sci-fi fantasy, and urban fantasy. We've been casually recommending and passing books to each other for months now, so it was a no-brainer when we decided to all read the same books this summer.
I don't know how Anne got involved--did I mention it to her? Did she show excitement about our reading discussions? Well whatever the case, we made our informal book club more formal, Anne jumped on board, we included Vero, and all we had to do was decide on what books to read.
I discussed book possibilities with Santino. It was hard for us to come up with new books that none of us had read. In fact, we piled all the books in our living room into various sections--Santino has read, Gerry has read, Santino and Gerry have read, Gina has read, etc. We covered all the permutations and found that the pile of books that nobody had read was fairly small.
Because I love lists and organizing things, I made a list of possible books. The list includes several by Neal Shusterman, Scott Westerfeld, Rick Riordan, and then random books here and there that we've heard of. We also had many recommendations from a book-pusher at Borders that we call "iCarly" who coerced us into buying several books we didn't need or want, including Shiver, Poison Study, and Unwind.
Everyone filled out their wish list--what they had read, what they were willing to re-read, and what they were eager to read. Gerry penciled in Unwind, and since none of us had read it (Vero had just read two chapters), we decided it would be our first book: Unwind by Neal Shusterman.
Alright alright! I know in my previous post I complained about only reading books for kids. And Neal Shusterman is a major contributor to YA fiction (that's Young Adult for you newbies), but he's real borderline. His heroes are teenagers, but the writing is for adults too. I read The Schwa Was Here--utter brilliance, and I'm not saying that just because I'm Italian. Neal Shusterman has a snappy writing style and is very good at creating complex, interesting, and likable characters.
I started reading that puppy, and I couldn't put it down. Well, actually I did put it down because I had also promised Gint that I would read Mortal Engines by Philip Reeve, but it was difficult to tear myself away from the trials of Connor, Risa, and Lev--our poor fugitives escaping from being unwound. (Oh you will just have to read the book yourself.) It didn't take me long to knock out that book, and then I passed it on to Santino. He read it in about a day and a half, grunting and groaning and stomping all the way as our poor teenagers ran in and out of peril.
I set up a blog so we could have an ongoing discussion--not much has been discussed there, but it's a start. Anyway, our first meeting is Thursday. I don't really know what goes on at book club meetings, but we are going to eat tacos and possibly have ice cream. I found a helpful website called litlovers.com, which gives suggestions on how to run a book club. Another good resource was a list of study questions posted on Neal Shusterman's website. But really, we are all a bunch of nerds, and I don't think we'll have any trouble talking about this fantastic book.
What's really neat is that I can hardly wait to bring this style of book discussion to my classroom. Since Open Court has taken our classrooms hostage, reading literature has become a thing of the past. I'm bringing chapter books and classical children's literature back into the classroom. I'll have my kids blog their ideas about the books, and maybe borrow some study questions from author websites. I can hardly wait.
Hopefully this book club of five will turn into a book club of thirty.
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