[CASL-L] Teen Book Clubs

[Cathy Andronik]

Matthew,

My book club at Brien McMahon High School was, perhaps, one of a kind, but I learned a lot about book clubs from those kids.

Do you have a cadre of students who hang out with you to talk about the books you and they are reading?  Tap into them as club members if they aren't already.  And if they aren't already because of the time the club meets, see if you can change the time to accommodate them.  After school, for instance, doesn't work in a school where the kids rely on buses to get home, or for a club where the members are also committed to other things like sports. It makes a HUGE difference.  We met during the lunch waves; I coordinated my work with teachers and classes around the book club schedule, as if it were a collaborative class in itself.  (Thank you, thank you, thank you, parents and the grant that allowed us to order pizzas--and the local pizza place that had multiple pies ready for us at 10:30 a.m.). I say all of this because some meetings I found myself able to sit back and let my library groupies run the discussions. It was a wonderful thing to witness. And when one of those kids said, "Did anyone else notice the tree symbolism? (and I hadn't even noticed the tree symbolism)" omg, my heart would grow three sizes. 

Are the kids reading the books?  Are you allowing enough time between meetings?  Are the books engaging?  

One thing I did (again, an idea I wish I could claim) was to get grants so students could keep their copies of the books.  It was a community with a lot of socioeconomic diversity, and I didn't want to choose who got a book and who had to borrow one from the library, so EVERYONE got his/her/their own book.  The kids LOVED this idea. Some showed me photos of the special bookshelf they'd created for book club books, or told me about family members who'd read them afterwards.  And it was bringing books into homes where, possibly, books were not commonplace. 

Do you use discussion-motivating activities?  I would sometimes find a fan site with artwork depicting the characters.  Or a video clip of something mentioned in the course of the book (for instance, with "Boy21," I found a clip of Sun Ra; for "Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock," a Bogart and Bacall scene--the kids had no idea who Humphrey Bogart or Lauren Bacall were, or what a romantic scene with real chemistry looked like in a '40s film).  Even if it's tangential to the story, it sparks discussion.  There are also discussion questions online, and I've got a cool collection of generic questions (wish I could claim them as my own, but they were also online) I'd be happy to share.  If the discussion veered off into shows the book reminded the kids of, or other books, it was okay with me.  We usually finished our time answering, "What else are you reading?" Leave enough time for that!

I sought out grants as often as I could, and sometimes used the $$ to bring in an author whose books the club had genuinely enjoyed, or to transport kids to an author festival (oh, I miss NYCTAF).  It encouraged participation and discussion--again, the interest could be tangential, but it kept the kids coming back meeting after meeting to see if they would be having lunch with an author that year.  (And yes, since they were funded by grants I'd done the footwork for, the author visits were tied into the book club, not a class; I invited classes, especially if the author was talking about the writing process, but classes were secondary.  You'd be surprised--or maybe not--at how hard it was to get high school teachers interested in having their kids meet a real, live, Printz-honor author.  The book club kids, however . . . night and day.)

How are you picking books?  I used the Nutmeg nominees as often as possible.  Yes, the kids wanted to choose the next read, and once a year I agreed, but I noticed that when the students picked the book the discussion fizzled quickly; they look for a different set of qualities than we adults do, and those qualities do not always encourage differences of opinion, necessary for lively discussion. 

I didn't start until the last couple of years of the club before I retired, but at the end of the year I let English teachers know which of their students had belonged and how many books we'd read, with a special comment about those kids who had driven the discussions. Some teachers did nothing with the information. Others gave a bit of extra credit, especially for those discussion-drivers. 

Can you tell that that club was my passion?  The kids noticed, and they responded.  In a school of 1700, we topped out at about 60 members the year I retired. It was one of the largest clubs in the school.  And while that number is how many names were on the roster, we generally had at least 35 kids show up for each meeting (okay, there was pizza--but they then had to stay and listen to their classmates talk about books they didn't have to read), the majority actually participating by saying a word or two.  

Don't give up. It took me years to get the book club to a place where it ran itself.

Cathy Andronik
Retired, Brien McMahon HS







On Wednesday 9 October 2024 at 08:01:16 am GMT-4, Matthew Cadorette via CASL-L <casl-l at mylist.net> wrote: 





  


Hi folks:

 

School has started and so has my library book club.

 

I’m never quite satisfied with our meetings and am looking for any ideas, suggestions, resources, or commiseration that anyone can offer.

 

Has anyone found a way to help students talk about books that aren’t attached to a grade?

 

Any help would be appreciated.

 

Thanks,

Matt

 

Matthew Cadorette

Librarian

Waterford High School

20 Rope Ferry Road

Waterford, CT 06385

(860) 437-6956

 

Billy Pilgrim has become unstuck in time

     Slaughterhouse 5, Kurt Vonnegut

 



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