Tuesday, June 5, 2007

The Mother-Daughter Book Club

I'm on a book chase lately, reading books to find books. This one was recommended in another book I read, and then this book led me to the next one I read. It was mostly about the mechanics of forming a Mother-Daughter book club, but it had some great insights on developing your relationship with your daughter before they hit adolescence and want nothing to do with you. I know that I'm a bit premature in worrying about adolescence, but I figure if I read up now, it won't hit me as hard later. Basically, the author, Shireen Dodson, wanted to have a better relationship with her nine-year-old daughter. She decided to form a group where they could talk about different topics without fighting about them. The book club was formed with 10 different moms and their daughters and was a big hit. They let their daughters pick the books, from a pre-screened list and let them lead the discussion. There were great book recommendations and some of the ideas were interesting. The mechanics of running a book club bored me, so I tended to skim through those chapters. All in all, worth checking out from the library.

The next book I read was by the same author, but was more of a reference guide to great books for girls. I read the intro, then just skimmed through the rest of the book. This is a book worth buying, to refer to again and again. I'm going to hunt for it on amazon marketplace or half.com and get it used. Each book has a description, discussion questions, info on the author, activities related to the book and other books that you might like. The author picks just about every type of book you can think of, so everyone can find something they like. I'm thinking I'll just start at the beginning and work my way through. Then, when my girls are big enough to read these kind of books, I'll have read them too and we can talk about them. I don't know about you, but that sounds like fun to me!

4 comments:

  1. I can't wait for you to start up your book club with all the other moms and daughters and at the first meeting your little girl makes the comment that the book made an interesting allegory for the demise of communist russia in the late 1980's and how the main protagonist's actions could be viewed as a statement on modern economic theory. Don't be surprised by the other moms as their jaws drop to the floor and are just happy that their little girl can now read a whole 50 page book. You might have to look for a different age group to join up with if things area shaping up the way things are headed.

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  2. Just kidding about the last post. Don't let that little one of yours read that or she might get a big head. I think it would be a great idea, especially for the two of you. Who knows how the second, third, or forth will do reading wise, but I hope they latch on to books like a two year old and permanent markers.

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  3. If my children ever say anything like that in a book club before they have a college degree, my jaw will hit the floor. But they're all addicted to books, that's for sure. My kids would be perfectly happy if all I did all day long was read books. Charlotte will stick them in my face and say, "READ THE BOOK!" until I put down what I'm doing and read to her. Annoying, and yet I feel like I've done my job.

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