New Book Clubs are Starting!

I love talking about books with other people, and I love my own adult book club for that reason. I try to bring that love and enthusiasm for sharing a good book into our classroom. All of my students participated in a book club this past month. The book clubs were totally student choice driven; I did recommend a few titles, but my students were truly in the driver's seat. In the month of January, the books that students chose to discuss were amazing:

• Yellow Star by Jennifer Roy
• As Easy As Falling Off the Face of the Earth by Lynne Rae Perkins
  
• The Magician's Elephant by Kate DiCamillo
  
• Rockets and Spaceships (D-K science book)
  
• Flush by Carl Hiassen
  

It was so much fun to listen in to the "big" conversations students were having. Since these were our first book clubs of the year, we still need to work on the dynamics of group conversation, but overall, they did a fantastic job.

After our initial success, I was excited to hear what they might want to participate in next. Last Friday, we met on the floor and took turns sharing books in which we thought others might be interested. I made two suggestions based on books I'd read recently, but the other recommendations once again came from the students. I'm very excited about their new choices (only one of my recommendations made their cut), and I'm looking forward to the dynamics of their new groups.

Books for February book clubs:

• The Defense of Thaddeus A. Ledbetter by John Gosselink - 7 students
  
• Danger at the Zoo (American Girl mystery) - 2 students
  
• The Name of this Book is Secret by Pseudonymous Bosch - 3 students
  
• The Boy Who Dared by Susan Campbell Bartoletti - 6 students
  
• The Wednesday Wars by Gary D. Schmidt - 3 students
  

Not everyone is participating in a book club this time (my requirement was at least 3 book clubs between the beginning of January and the end of May). That's okay. I know that the book that interests them and they might want to share with others could just be down the road.

What I love when I look at this list of books is how different from one another these books are. My hope is that our book clubs reflect the interests of the individual students, and this list of books appears to be a good indication that they do.

For now, I'm so excited to hear the conversations about the books they've selected in February!

5th Grade Newbery Club Off to an Exciting Start

When I was considering moving into the library 4 years ago, I made a list of things I would like to try or accomplish if I got the job. You're reading the number one thing on the list, a blog, and today my friend Maria of Teaching in the 21st Century helped me accomplish another. Since the beginning of my library adventure I've wanted to start a Newbery Club or mock selection of some sort, after all, trying to read the Newbery winner before it's announced is what started me down the road to being a librarian.

Anyway, about two weeks ago Maria and I sat down and hammered out some logistics of the thing, I would take the lead on setting the expectations, communicating with parents, and organizing lists. Maria took the lead on showing the kids the wiki we set up, writing expectations and how comment on each other's posts.

I put together a packet with a parent signature form that clearly spelled out our expectations clearly spelled out, students must read a minimum of two books from assigned books, attend before school meetings roughly every other week, be ready to share what they are reading and write regularly on the wiki. It was stated very clearly that this club was not for everyone, it would involve lots of fairly high level reading and writing. After meeting with the whole fifth grade, I think they actually walked out of the library a little scared, they were very quiet. In fact Super Aid Yvonne even said that to me, "I think you scared them!"

I wasn't trying to scare them, but we only wanted the most serious readers to join us and I made it clear that if they failed to meet the expectations, they would be dismissed from the club. This was not a place to just "hang with your friends" this was a group who was going to be serious about reading good books.

The forms began coming back in and we ended up with 18 kids, a good number, most of them we had predicted would join, but there were a few surprises. Today we kicked it off, 17 of 18 showed up, one was sick. Just let me say this, IT WAS AWESOME! When we took a status of the group, every student had read one book on the list, most had read two and one had read three and is working on the fourth! All were excited about being there, and all worked hard on their first posts as members of the club. It was one of those moments that remind me of why I chose this profession, it was a Grand Discussion good feeling.

Later one of the kids commented that it was just awesome to be in a room of people who love to read, and I'll throw this in for my friend James Preller, it was a boy! WOO HOO!

I look forward to reading the posts and commenting on every one, I look forward to future meetings when we have time to discuss the books, I look forward to introducing Voice Thread to the group as another tool to discuss our reading.

Basically I have only one regret in organizing this group, I wish I had scheduled more before school meetings so we could get together more often.