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I consider myself lucky that my boys grew up to be readers. Their dad is a more stereotypical male reader: news websites, magazines, the sports section, and the occasional graphic novel. But my teen son can often be found stretched out on the couch, his nose in a novel. His brother at college was thrilled when I got him copies of the Leviathan series so he could finish reading it after listening to the first book on long drives last summer.
And I am particularly heartened that they're both willing to tackle "hard" books – even some that I, the English major in the family, never read! To my mind, I owe it all to the Kids Classic Book Club my boys belonged to when they were younger. The start of the GeekMom Book Club brought back those wonderful memories of sharing books along with my kids, one of our favorite homeschool activities.
The Kids Classic Book Club was originally aimed at kids age 7 and up, although younger siblings were allowed to tag along. As the years passed, those younger kids began to join in the discussion as well. Many families did what we did, which was to use that month's choice as a bedtime read-aloud. That way even the emerging readers in the family could keep up. Of course, as the kids got older, if the book was particularly engrossing I'd often find that one or the other would sneak it out after lights-out and read a little ahead.
The selections were made by the adults with the kids' input; that way, we managed to stick to meatier choices than Captain Underpants. And since the adults participated along with the kids, the book had to appeal to us as well! We chose the titles from personal or family favorites, books we’d heard about or always wanted to read, and lists of recommended children’s literature. Because of the range of ages, we tended to stay away from gloomy young adult novels, even though the kids could handle that level of reading difficulty. But that doesn’t mean we stayed away from difficult issues – just that we looked for classic treatments of serious themes that served children well over the years.
We also tried to vary action stories with animal tales, older classics with more current bestsellers, and books that were demanding with quick reads. Because we were all families on a budget, we also checked to make sure there are multiple copies available through the library system, or that it was out in paperback. (The big exception being Harry Potter, which we all bought at midnight release parties whenever possible!)
But I'm leaving out the best part. Each month a different family hosted the meeting, either at their home or at another location. And part of their hosting duties included coming up with some kind of extra activity. The activity could be anything. For The Hobbit, we played a board game that one family invented using the maps and characters in the book. When we read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, we took a tour of a local chocolate shop and helped decorate some Easter Bunnies. Although I ruled out filling our living room with snow for Mr. Popper's Penguins (a delightful story, not at all like the live-action movie), I did prepare some clean buckets of snow and flavored syrups so we could all have snow cones!
Our meeting for Journey to the Center of the Earth was held – where else? – in a huge cavern deep in an underground cave, where the group got to experience what complete darkness is really like.
One summer, when I got tired of looking at the unpainted wooden fence that came with our new house, I suggested we read The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, then gave everyone a bucket and a brush and set them to work:
Another summer selection was The Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. For that meeting, I scattered fake coins in the bottom of a wading pool, and set up tables where the kids could play cards for "money." Then they took their earnings and bought themselves some lunch at the "Automat" our family built out of cardboard boxes and spray paint:
What made the Kids Classic Book Club work so well? This is what we found:
- Try to have everyone read the same version of the book. Families that tried reading simplified adaptations, listening to abridged audio books, or watching the movie missed out some of the flavor and flow of the book and had trouble following the discussion. (If there was a good movie version, we waited until after book club meeting to watch it, so we wouldn't get the movie and book version mixed up.)
- The key to good discussions is research. Find the author’s biography, learn how she came to write the book, and search for information about what effect, if any, the book had on society. When we read Black Beauty, that month’s host told us that author Anna Sewell wrote the very British story while living in America, and described the role the book played in improving the treatment of horses and other animals in Victorian society.
- Get the kids involved. Ask them to name the characters and explain why they liked or disliked them. Have them talk about about what happened in the book and think about what the author’s intentions might have been. Once the kids got the hang of it, they came with their own questions to the meeting and brought up issues they were bursting to discuss.
If you'd like to try to form your own Kids Classic Book Club, here are some titles that worked well for us, in no particular order:
Treasure Island
The Phantom Tollbooth
The Secret Garden
The Railway Children
Stuart Little
A Wrinkle in Time
Farmer Boy
Dr. Doolittle
Holes
My Side of the Mountain
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Don Quixote
Mary Poppins
All Creatures Great and Small
The Thief Lord
The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe
Kidnapped
Half Magic
And for more ideas, check out Scholastic's 100 Greatest Books for Kids, which lets you sort titles by age, as well as the Cybils Awards for more recent titles.
