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The first step is very simple: talk with your daughter about whether
she would be interested in starting a mother daughter book club.
How you introduce the subject depends on your daughter. If she
loves to read, stress all of the wonderful books you could read
together. If your daughter is more social and not an avid reader,
describe special times you'd share with her friends. You know
your daughter, so use whichever approach will make her eyes light
up with enthusiasm.
Whom To Invite
The hardest part of starting a mother-daughter book club is deciding whom to include. Most girls want more members than would comfortably fit in a small gym! I do suggest no more than ten mother-daughter pairs (20 members) and no less than four pairs (eight members). It is safe to assume that at least one pair will miss any given meeting, and it is hard to have a meaningful discussion with less than six people. Another factor to consider is age. Morgan's group spans three grade levels, while Skylar's group is all one grade level. I recommend that your group not span more than two grades.
Drawing up an initial guest list can be extra challenging to moms, who must practice listening to their daughters and accepting their choices. As I mentioned before, I firmly believe daughters should get to choose those to invite. It is their club!
When it came to forming Skylar's club, it was hard to follow my own advice. While the majority of the Bookworms came from Skylar's school, she chose several girls whom I did not know. She also left out several girls whom I thought would be perfect and whose moms I particularly liked and wanted to get to know better. But I listened and, again, my daughter proved to have excellent instincts. Bookworms is a wonderfully diverse group of independent freethinking girls and moms.
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First Organizational Meeting
For your first meeting, pick out a book together and send invitations asking everyone to read the book in advance. I suggest choosing a book that has been a favorite at your house. Try to give potential club members at least 30 days notice so they have ample time to read the book.
Next, help your daughter select or make up discussion questions about the book. Girls have wonderful ideas and opinions and are willing to share when asked. Also plan a simple icebreaker activity or game. At our first mother-daughter book club meeting, we asked each girl to introduce her mother and tell something about her, and each mother to introduce her daughter. This straightforward activity led to some fascinating revelations and got us off to a rousing start.
Food is also an integral part of our meetings and another way we "experience" the book. We like to serve something that was mentioned or described in the book. When our group read the Dear America: Color Me Dark, my daughter and I actually made Mr. John Cooper's Buttermilk Pie from the recipe in the book. It was delicious, and a big hit with the club!
The most important thing about a mother-daughter book club is the sharing and discussion. You do not need a lot of structure and rules. Here are the basics that need to be agreed upon at your first meeting:
- The overall vision of and expectations for the club. Establish a set meeting date and time, as well as the frequency of your meetings. Do not change them. The first Sunday of the month at 3:00 p.m., September through June, works best for one of my clubs. While we found it too difficult to meet in the summer, we do select a book in June to read over the summer and to discuss in September. The girls do not mind as the book club book usually can count as one of their summer reading requirements for school.
- Responsibilities beyond reading, such as hosting or arranging guest speakers. Rotating the meetings from house to house creates a warm informal feeling. A library, bookstore or school, if centrally located, would also work. The host mother and daughter send out the reminder notices and decide what refreshments to serve. If the hosts decide that they would like to do a craft at a meeting, they provide the necessary materials. Because the meetings rotate homes so everyone gets a turn at hosting, there is no need for the club to have any formal or informal financial obligations.
- Decide how to lead discussions. In my two clubs the host daughter makes up the discussion questions and facilitates the meeting. I have found that the girls take these responsibilities quite seriously and rather enjoy being in control. During the meeting the other girls, knowing that their turn will come, are very respectful and help the facilitator discuss all her questions.
- Establish the length and flow of the meeting. This will change over time, so stay flexible. When our original mother-daughter book club first started, the actual discussion period lasted about 45 minutes. Our discussions are currently running a good hour and a half. When we first arrive the girls go off in a separate area to catch up with each other and have snacks. The moms do the same, and deal with any organizational matters that may have come up. This 30 minute meet-and-greet time deals gracefully with the fact that everyone does not arrive at the exact same moment. It also gives the girls a chance to have hugs and squeals, let off steam, and then calm down before the discussion.
- Establish your book selection process. The host mother and daughter can select the book, which is how the Bookworms do it. The key here is that the meeting notices allow at least 30 days for the club to read the book. We try to have several months of titles identified ahead of time.
Alternatively, the entire club can suggest books and then choose by consensus, which is how Morgan's club does it. The only rule we have is that you can not recommend a book that you have not read. I suggest picking books twice a year in September and May. After fulfilling summer reading requirements, good books are fresh in the girls' minds.
A nice parting touch for the organizational meeting is to hand out take-home materials. These might be an article about a mother-daughter book club from the newspaper or magazine, a list of the current Caldecott Metal, Coretta Scott King, or Newbery awards for children's literature, the club membership list, a list of phone numbers of area bookstores and libraries, the initial suggested book list for the group, and any reminders.
Congratulations! You now have an official mother-daughter book club. Time to enjoy the journey.
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Developing Discussion Questions
Not every book inspires soulful reflections. Some discussions are more memorable than others are for their humor, unexpected reactions or the sudden revelation of a generation or maturity gap. All of them can be satisfying in one way or another if you start with good strong questions.
- Avoid questions that can be answered with a yes or no.
- Ask questions that pull you back into the text to find out how you "know" something. Is it because the author or character said it outright, or have you assumed something? Could there be a different conclusion?
- Ask about motives. Why did a character do what she did? Or why would she? When in doubt, ask "why?"
- Ask about details. What did the character's clothing or choice of foods tell about him? Why would the author want us to know that?
- Why did characters feel the way they did? Are their feelings spelled out, or do you sense them in some other way? How?
- Explore language. Do the characters talk in a way that tells something about them?
- Explore the setting. The Dear America titles lend themselves to asking some wonderful questions related to setting. Are the characters' decisions affected by the time period in which the story occurs? What insights about the effect of living in a different period of history did you gain?
If you're still not confident you can develop a good discussion question, use the following questions that will work for any book:
- What did you like about the story?
- What didn't you like about the story?
- What was the author trying to accomplish by writing this book?
- Which character did you identify with the most and why?
- What problem is the main character facing? Is the problem solved in a satisfactory way?
- Would you have solved the problem in the same way? If not, what would you have done differently?
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Tips for Success
Naturally as with any book club not everything always runs smoothly. Here are some general tips for keeping your mother-daughter book club on track.
- Set a good example. When the girls hear us sharing thoughts — including different points of view— in a respectful, collaborative way, they're learning about the world of women in a way they won't see in many TV sitcoms, movies or even books.
- Don't feel pressured to demonstrate smart, witty, insightful, sophisticated and sensitive literary analysis. Relax, listen, contribute when it's comfortable and watch for ways to help the girls explore the questions they seem to find compelling.
- In all matters, ask instead of tell, and facilitate only when the girls make it clear they need help. When the moms get carried away and start to take over the discussion, politely cut in by saying "Can we get back to our questions now?" If you ask a question and no one responds, wait a moment, and then call on someone.
While being in a mother-daughter book club will not turn the casual reader into a voracious reader it will expose a girl to different genres including historical fiction. The Dear America series has taken historical fiction for young people to new heights. They are perfect discussion books. Using the art of storytelling, they provide fascinating insights into our past as well as different cultures. Since another one of our goals is to keep the mother-daughter book club from bearing any resemblance to school, I don't mention to the girls that they are learning real history.
Whether you read Dear America titles or other books with your club, just remember to keep it simple and keep it fun. You're sure to start a wonderful mother-daughter story all your own.
Shireen Dodson
June 2000
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