This is my third year as a high school librarian and each year I've tried to have a book club for my teens. I have learned a lot along the way---mostly about what not to do, but I'll take that learning any day.
This year, we've been holding our book club during Mega Lunch. We did this last year, too, but we didn't actually start our Mega Lunch experiment until January, so we didn't have a ton of time together.
So far, our group this year has been small but mighty, typically about 4-6 kids at our weekly meetings. We wanted our group to grow --not too much, mind you---but a bit---and so we decided to add some mystery to draw folks in. Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan was the perfect choice!
I pulled some parchment-looking cardstock and created some simple yet mysterious invitations, and then at our next book club meeting, the group got together to learn to make wax seals. This was the first time any of them had used them so it was a lot of fun.
Each kiddo gave me some names of friends they wanted to invite and my student aides delivered the invitations. The books had already arrived, so I met them with the books for the big reveal of what in the heck this was all about. Every student who came decided to stay and books were passed out. We have all agreed to read it over our holiday break and get back together the first week of January to begin our discussions.
It was a great beginning to our read-a-book-together portion of this year's book club events I'll keep you posted on how it goes!
