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We began, in the Fall of 2005, with the Boys’ Book Club, a colleague and I, and met every week at lunch time with about thirty boys in Grades 4, 5 and 6. After touring records books, monster books and books about superheros, we decided, in the late Fall of 2006, to move to a more traditional Book Club format.  We began with Ulysses Moore: The Door to Time, and thoroughly enjoyed the adventures of our three heroes, as well as exploring secret codes, learning about Ulysses and drawing complicated maps of that old house on the cliffs and the twisting passages beneath. The boys then chose The Devil, the Banshee and Me, a wild romp of a tale that led to some very hilarious acting out of scenes and a long debate about “points of departure” on the highway of life. We started the 2007-2008 year with Wolf Pack, which won the Silver Birch prize two years ago, then read Hatchet and Baboon, two terrific books about survival in the wilderness.  Last year we read The Thief Lord, the ten novels nominated for the Silver Birch fiction prize, and The Lightning Thief, by Rick Riordan.  We are starting off this year with Gregor the Overlander by Suzanne Collins, a novel recommended by a member of the Intermediate Book Club, and plan to read Tim Wynne-Jones’ Rex Zero and the End of the World.  We are going to try a Boys’ Book Club wiki to share our insights!

In January of 2007, the junior girls at my school went to the principal with a petition demanding their own book club. I confess I rather challenged them to this when they began to complain. And so was born the Girls’ Book Club. If managing the boys can be described at trying to herd mules, then meetings with the girls can only be compared to running after stampeding horses. The nearly forty girls were off and running with ideas for books and activities before we ever held our first meeting. We read three novels in the following months – first Diary of a Fairy Godmother, then Bridge to Terabethia and Freak the Mighty. Nominated, discussed and voted on by the girls themselves, these three books were wonderful and inspired lots of great discussion and not a little soul searching.  Last year, we are tackled five novels all at once, Dusssie, Dancing Through the Snow, The Royal Woods, Molly Moon: Micky Minus and the Mind Machine, and The Thrilling Life of Pauline Lammermoor, then read The Frog Princess, Peter and the Starcatchers, and Prophecy of the Stones.  We ended the year with that classic of Canadian children’s literature, Anne of Green Gables and capped off the year with a wonderful Anne picnic in a local park!  Last year we began with Inkheart, by Cornelia Funke, in anticipation of the movie by the same name, then tackled the ten novels nominated for the Silver Birch fiction award, before reading Rick Riordan’s book The Lightning Thief.  We haven’t yet decided on what we will be reading, this year, but girls will be sharing their thoughts and questions through our new Girls’ Book Club wiki, a private, password-protected online forum.

In October of 2007, I started up a new book club, the Intermediate Book Club, for students in Grades 7 and 8. Though our numbers are small, the members are all intelligent, articulate and extremely well read. We chose as our first novel Deborah Ellis’ Sacred Leaf, then went onto Eric Walters’ Sketches.  Last year we read The Amulet of Samarkand, the Red Maple novels, and The Book Thief, and spent many wonderful lunch hours arguing about books and just about every other topic.  Our Book Club wiki was home to lots of good debate and excellent student-written reviews! This year we are going to begin with two recently-published novels by Canadian authors, Not Suitable for Family Viewing, by Vicki Grant, and Haunted, by Barbara Haworth-Attard.

It promises to be another wonderful year!

FernFolio Editor