Thanks to all of you that responded!
I’ve decided to go with Riding the Bus With My Sister, by Rachel Simon,
but I will be choosing a few more titles for the year, and reviewing the
rest of your suggestions then. By the way, the first site listed in the
responses was MOST helpful.
Original request:
It's my first year here, and one of my administrators is very excited
about the idea of me hosting a community book club. However, I'm not
sure about which titles to consider - I need at least four for the
school year. I've read the recent and archived hits about book club
choices, especially adult choices, but none were specifically for this
need. Does anyone know of any titles that would be appropriate for a
community-feel book club? It would probably be mostly adults attending,
but I want to make sure the book is something that would appeal to a
wide readership and be interesting to discuss as a small group...and I
need to be distributing fliers on this Thursday night at Back to School
Night.
One resource that you might want to look at is the library of congress has
a listing
for communities that have done the one book program. The link is here:
http://www.loc.gov/loc/cfbook/one-book.html
I think that Chicago started it with To Kill a Mockingbird.
Milwaukee has read Frankenstein, House on Mango Street, Kindred, andSnow
Falling on
Cedars.
_______
Our community does a community read every year. We try to pick a title
that will appeal to several generations. So far we have used:
A Long Way From Chicago by Richard Peck
Because of Winn-Dixie by Kate DiCamillo
Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech
Hatchet by Gary Paulson
and this year we are using
Parsifal's Page by Geral Morris.
_________
My book club just read Sahara Special by Esme Codell. It is an IRA winner.
We had a lively discussion as the book contains lots of cutting edge
educational principles.
_______
Our community recently (culminated last week) did Ellen Foster by Kaye
Gibbons. It was excellent and we had her come for the day to talk to
high school students, college students, and at the public library before
an evening
book talk. I had read the book a few years back and actually kept it
rather than passing it on like most of my fiction reading. Of
course Kaye
Gibbions is a North Carolina author but the situation in the book is a
universal one unfortunately
______
Tuesdays with Morrie
To Kill a Mockingbird
______
Hey Kelly choosing "Adullt" titles can be tricky!! Do you have to be
concerned about the language content? One of my favorites is A Northern
Light by Jennifer Donnelly. It is an outstanding choice for
historical-fiction fans. Also check the New York Times best seller list
to see what is popular. Some other titles I use in my high school library
are: Midwives, by Chris Bohjalian, The Pilots Wife by Anita Shreve, and
The Last Promise and A Perfect Day by Richard Paul Evans. These are just
a few of my student's favorites as well as mine. Hope this helps.
________
From School Library Journal
Adult/High School-This beautifully presented novella tracks the lives of
two teens,
childhood friends who have been sent to a small Chinese village for
"re-education"
during Mao's Cultural Revolution. Sons of doctors and dentists, their days
are now
spent muscling buckets of excrement up the mountainside and mining coal.
But the
boys-Luo and the unnamed narrator-receive a bit of a reprieve when the
villagers
discover their talents as storytellers; they are sent on monthly treks to
town,
tasked with watching a movie and relating it in detail on their return. It
is here
that they encounter the little seamstress of the title, whom Luo falls for
instantly. When, through a series of comic and clever tricks and favors,
the boys
acquire a suitcase full of forbidden Western literature, Luo decides to
"re-educate"
the ignorant girl whom he hopes will become his intellectual match. That a
bit of
Balzac can have an aphrodisiac effect is a happy bonus. Ultimately, the
book is a
simple,
lovely telling of a classic boy-meets-girl scenario with a folktale's smart,
surprising bite at the finish. The story movingly captures Maoism's
attempts to
imprison one's mind and heart (with the threat of the same for one's
body), the
shock of the sudden cultural shift for "bourgeois" Chinese, and the sheer
delight
that books can offer a downtrodden spirit. Though these moments are fewer
after the
love story is introduced, teens will enjoy them at least as much as the
comic and
romantic strands.
________
Ours has done
March by Geraldine Brooks
Plain Truth by Picquolt
Eats, Shoots and Leaves
These are the ones upcoming:
October The Reading Group by Elizabeth Nobel
November Little Chapel on the River by Gwendolyn Bounds
December No book. This is our annual party/book exchange
January Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See
February My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Piccoult
March The Known World by Edward P. Jones
April Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Foer
May Mr. Lincoln's War by Perret
My high school (only my second year) has a tradition of having the school
site council read a book together over the year. Last year we read “The
World is Flat”. The year before they read “Doing School”. This year we are
reading “The 7 Habits of Effective Teens”.
The idea was to choose titles that encourage conversation and the exchange
of ideas.
Maybe these could work for your club.
_______
Kelly Lasher
School Library Media Specialist
Middle Township High School
Cape May Court House, NJ
kjtomlin@eden.rutgers.edu
lasherk@mtps.sjtp.net
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