Kids Book Club Book

The Kids' Book Club Book: Reading Ideas, Recipes, Activities, and Smart Tips for Organizing Terrific

by Judy Gelman  Vicki Levy Krupp  
list price: $16.95 USD
Amazon price: $11.53 USD

Amazon Review:The first complete guide-for use by adults and children-to creating fun and educational book clubs for kids.

As authors of The Book Club Cookbook, the classic guide to integrating great food and food-related discussion into book club gatherings, Judy Gelman and Vicki Levy Krupp hear a common refrain from parents, librarians, teachers, community leaders and kids themselves: "How about writing a book for kids' book clubs?" Indeed, in recent years youth organizations, parents, libraries, schools, and our local, state, and federal governments have launched thousands of book clubs for children as a way to counter falling literacy rates and foster a love of reading. Based on surveys representing five hundred youth book clubs across the country and interviews with parents, kids, educators, and librarians, The Kids' Book Club Book features:

_- the top fifty favorite book club reads for children ages eight to eighteen;
_- ideas and advice on forming great kids' book clubs-and tips for kids who want to start their own book clubs;
_- recipes, activities, and insights from such bestselling children's book authors as Christopher Paolini, Lois Lowry, Jerry Spinelli, Nancy Farmer, Christopher Paul Curtis, Andrew Clements, Laurie Halse Anderson, Norton Juster, and many others.

From recipes for the Dump Punch and egg salad sandwiches included in Kate DiCamillo's Because of Winn-Dixie to instructionson how to make soap carvings like the ones left in the knot-hole of a tree in Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, this book provides a bounty of ideas for making every kids' book club a success.

Lynn's Review:

Hey kids! It's another MotherTalk blog tour!*

School is nearly out, and parents everywhere are beginning to wonder what the heck to do with the summer looming before them. Here's an idea: Start a kids' book club. As it happens, I know just where to send you for information on how to do it.

Judy Gelman and Vicki Levy Krupp have taken the concept from their first book, "The Book Club Cookbook," and gone nuts with it, creating what will probably always stand as the definitive book on organizing a kids' reading club. It covers the how-tos of starting a book club for children, ways to spice up meetings, and includes lists of suggested books for certain age groups.

Then they take these ideas and show you exactly what they're talking about, taking a suggested book and breaking it down for you. A timid book club organizer could take this book and work with it for a good chunk of time without having to come up with a single original idea. By the time he finished, he'd be a pro and wouldn't have any trouble continuing on his own.

Example: The break-down of "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory":

• A brief synopsis of the book.
• A couple of pages of "tidbits" on author Roald Dahl, including biographical notes and a discussion of racism in the original depiction of the Oompa-Loompas.
• A recipe for Wonka's Whipple-Scrumptious Fudgemallow Delight, a recipe created by Dahl himself with his wife, Felicity (with a warning that it's extremely sweet).
• A "candy inventing" activity.
• A candy bar guessing game.
• Discussion questions for the kids.
• Sadly, no ideas on how adults can cope with a book club full of kids hopped up on sugar. Luckily, it's a rare book that has this much candy in it!

Gelman and Levy Krupp interviewed something like 500 kids' book clubs around the country, and it shows. This book is PACKED with book ideas, activities, recipes, discussion questions and more. I can't imagine a homeschool group, especially, that wouldn't get a great deal out of it.

*What that means is, I got a free copy of the book and a $20 Amazon gift certificate for reviewing it, in full disclosure.