Thomas Friedman is more known for his observations on world affairs than family affairs, but in a recent opinion article for the New York Times, Friedman talks about how children show higher success rates in school when their parents read to them in the early years and are involved with their lives as they grow.

Friedman’s opinion piece cites a study conducted by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, or O.E.C.D., that looked beyond students’ performance on tests to help determine why some were more successful than others. Not surprisingly, parental involvement was found to play a key role. Of particular note was this finding: “Fifteen-year-old students whose parents often read books with them during their first year of primary school show markedly higher scores in PISA (Program for International Student Assessment) 2009 than students whose parents read with them infrequently or not at all. The performance advantage among students whose parents read to them in their early school years is evident regardless of the family socioeconomic background.”

To see the findings from O.E.C.D. and to see other studies, including one that looks at how reading for pleasure affects success in school, visit the PISA home page.

These findings strengthen the case for family books clubs. When you have a family book club, it helps you prioritize reading with your child and talk about what you read. Reading groups are also a way to keep everyone in the family reading for fun, even as the kids grow up and become involved in more activities that take them away from home.

November is National Family Literacy Month. Now is a good time to consider starting your own family reading group. To help you get started, I’ve written a few articles about reading with your family. Also, I’m giving away a copy of my guidebook for mother-daughter book clubs to someone who comments by the end of the day this Friday, November 25. It’s called Book by Book: The Complete Guide to Creating Mother-Daughter Book Clubs, and many of the recommendations found there can be adapted for reading groups created within a single family. Here’s where to find the other articles:

Tips on Starting a Family Book Club

Books for Family Reading Groups to Read Out Loud

Activities and Games Extend the Fun of Reading in Family Book Clubs

November is Family Literacy Month, and here at Mother Daughter Book Club. com I’m talking about increasing literacy for everyone in the family through reading groups. (See previous posts about starting a group and ideas for what to read by age group.) And if you’d like to enter your name for a chance to win a copy of Book by Book: The Complete Guide to Creating Mother-Daughter Book Clubs, just leave a comment on my post with tips for getting started. I’m choosing a winner each Friday in November, so there are still two chances left to win.

It’s true that kids and adults are more likely to enjoy reading if it’s fun. How do you make reading fun? Make sure that everyone is enjoying what you read. Read aloud with silly voices and sound effects. And add in a game or other activity every now and then.

Art projects make particularly good activities to go with a book you are reading in your family book club. Scheduling time to create art inspired by the book also lets you talk about what you’re reading. And that may lead to all kinds of topics that help parents and children communicate about issues that are really important.

Here are a few ideas for projects you can easily tie into your family book club.

Make a bookmark. Buy posterboard or heavy card stock and outline the shape of a bookmark in pencil. Don’t cut it out until after you and your kids have finished your creations. Using colored pencils or markers, finger paints or watercolors, draw something inspired by the story you’re reading. For instance, if you’re reading the Trumpet of the Swan by E. B. White, you may want to draw a swan blowing a trumpet or the pond where Louis is born.

Even younger kids can draw squiggles that represent things, like the bears in More Bears! by Kenn Nesbitt and Troy Cummings. Once everyone has a bookmark they are satisfied with, you can cut the shape out and begin using it right away. If you’d like to make your creation last for years, you can take it to a local copy store and have it laminated.

Older children may enjoy games set around the book too. Think about creating a word search or crossword puzzle using words in the book that may be good for your child to focus on. Or, play a game of charades using words from the book written on slips of paper. Just a little creativity is all it takes to bring the pages of the book to life and make your family book club even more fun.

When my daughters were young, reading books together was one of our favorite things to do as a family. Most often, my husband, daughters and I would snuggle up together just before the girls went to sleep, and either my husband or I would read aloud. We stopped often to laugh or talk about something we had just read. No matter how many directions we went during the day, it was comforting for me to know that for 20 or 30 minutes each night, we would put aside time to be together and focus on a story.

We didn’t call what we did a family book club, but that is in effect what we created. I like to think those family book sessions helped spark an early interest in reading that later led to our mother-daughter book clubs and our continued interest in sharing books together. If you’re considering starting your own family group, here are a few tips to keep in mind.

1. Find a consistent time to read, and make sure that no other distractions get in the way. For many families, that window of time comes up just before the kids go to bed. It’s sometimes easy for busy parents to fill this time with chores, but everyone benefits from a breather where you are all focused on engaging in an activity together.
2. Choose books that your kids will think are fun and imaginative. Children love to hear about fantastical worlds where the rules they are familiar with don’t apply. When your children are very little, you can start out with picture books that you read over and over again, talking about something new in the story each time. As they grow, you can graduate to more complicated stories that cover issues of family and friendships.
3. Make the time a treat, and don’t force it as a punishment. This should be a fun time for everyone. If the book isn’t resonating, don’t keep going just because you think your kids need to finish the story. If this happens, they will look for ways to get out of family reading time and so will you. At the same time, don’t threaten to cancel your reading sessions if your kids do something you disapprove of. Your book club should be a way to grow closer together, not further apart.
4. Be open to other storytelling methods. We used to love listening to the stories on NPR’s Rabbit Ears Radio. For a half hour, we would all lie quietly and listen to the tale being read, then we talked about it afterward. You can look for books on tape or seek out a storyteller that performs at the library or somewhere else in your community.
5. Don’t be afraid to use funny voices as you read, and stop to explain something if you need to. My daughters usually didn’t interrupt, but sometimes while reading I got the feeling they didn’t really understand what was happening in the story. When my husband or I stopped and asked if they knew what was going on, we had a chance to talk about it and they often learned something new.
6. Bring something you read about into another part of your day. For instance, if the characters in a book enjoy eating ice cream, set up a time when everyone in the family can go out for a treat just like in the story.

November is National Family Literacy Month, and I’ll be presenting ideas for families to read together throughout the month. You may want to look at this article on good books to consider for your family book club. And don’t forget to add a comment to my previous post for your chance to win a copy of Book by Book: The Complete Guide to Creating Mother-Daughter Book Clubs. I’ll be giving away one copy each Friday in November to help encourage new clubs to form.

Thanks to reader Amber A. for writing in about successful activities in her mother-daughter book club. Talking about the book and socializing are always a big part of book club meetings, but other activities can add a whole new level of fun. Here are the books Amber’s group read and the creative ideas they came up with for their meetings:

Half Magic by Edward Eager
Each girl put on a magic show for the group. You can find easy magic tricks on the web. Then, I taught them to play a card game, Doubt It.  They had a lot of fun with this and got a little rowdy. Best to do at the very end. For snacks we had Celery Soda (you can find this on the web) and Hot Fudge Dope (ice cream sundae).

Soul Surfer by Bethany Hamilton
I ordered some shark teeth on the Internet that was set for making a necklace. After our discussion, we all made necklaces. I also had a replica (got from the same place) of an adult shark tooth. We live in Huntington Beach, California, so I was going to take a field trip to the surfing museum in town. Bethany Hamilton also has a website with a recipe for a specific smoothie. I also thought about having the girls make that. However, we ended up just going with the necklaces.

Freaky Friday by Mary Rodgers
A version of the Newlywed Game, where the mother and daughter answer questions about each other.
An obstacle course, where the mom is blind folded and the daughter must give the mom directions but cannot touch her. We just used our yard and put chairs and tables in the way so the mom had to maneuver around them. Then we switched—mother directed the daughter.

It’s easy to settle into a routine with your book club when it’s time to discuss the book. We’re all creatures of habit, and there’s something comforting about knowing what to expect when you show up at your reading group meeting. Routine has the advantage of making it easier for you when you’re the one in charge of leading the discussion, too. If you follow an established formula, you can be relatively sure that book talk will go smoothly.

Yet sometimes following an expected pattern can get boring, and your predictable group may run the risk of its members losing interest. That’s why it’s good to liven up your discussions every now and then. Here are a few ideas for ways to bust out of your meeting ruts and get everybody energized.

1. Ask members to bring something to share—when one of the members of my reading group assigned poetry to read one month, she also gave us an assignment: write at least one poem of any type and read it at the meeting. This got us talking about the kinds of poetry we liked, our favorite poets, and why we chose to write the poem we wrote in the style we chose. Discussion was vibrant and lasted a couple of hours. You could also ask members to bring an object that symbolizes something in the book they want to talk about. Then let each person present her object with the topic to discuss.
2. Create a visual focus—set up a display pad  and ask people to shout out traits they liked or disliked about the main character while you write down the list. Use your list to discuss how those traits affected the action in the book. Another idea is to list two columns: one of things people in your group have in common with the main character, the other of things that are different.
3. Borrow a page from the theater crowd and start with a warm-up exercise. A common one that’s sure to get everyone laughing and lead into discussion is the game of telephone. Choose a sentence from the book that starts a passage you’d like to discuss. Whisper it into the ear of the person sitting next to you, and have her whisper it to the person next to her and on around your circle. Have the last person repeat to the group what she heard.
4. Ask out of the ordinary questions that will get your members thinking differently. For instance, you could ask, “What kind of books do you think the main character likes to read?” “What do you think happens after the book ends?” “What will you remember about this book a year from now?
5. Toss a beanbag to encourage participation. You can start off by holding the beanbag and asking a question you’d like everyone to answer. When you’re done, toss the bean bag to someone else in the group and ask her to pose the next question. Continue around until everyone has a chance to lead a discussion point.

These ideas may just get your own creative juices swirling enough for you to come up with lots more rut-busting ideas of your own. Just remember your goal: to create engaging lively discussions that leave your members looking forward to your next book group meeting.

When book club members get together you can usually count on good fun, good company and great socializing. What’s not to like? But with all the fun you have at meetings, it may be easy to forget that you need to exert a little effort too if you want to have good discussions.

You may balk at the idea that book club has to be work at all. Sometimes what you’re looking for after a long day at work or with the kids is just to escape. The last thing you may want is another obligation hanging over your head.

Yet without a good discussion, book club is just another social event. And while that may be okay for a meeting or two, over the long term you and other members may find yourselves dissatisfied without good book talk to anchor your time together.

The good news is that spending a little effort to be a good book club member doesn’t have to take a lot of time or energy. Here are a few tips you may want to keep in mind whether you’re attending a book club meeting or hosting one.

1. Come prepared to talk about the book. Think about what you liked or disliked about it, and point to specific examples. You can save time by marking passages with sticky notes as you read so you don’t have to go back and look for examples after you’re done.
2. Give your full attention to other members when they talk, and don’t start a separate conversation with the person sitting next to you.
3. Save unrelated personal stories for social time leading up to or after book discussion.
4. When it’s your turn to choose the book, be ready to recommend a title. That way everyone can get started reading soon after the meeting if they’d like.
5. When you host book club, have a set of questions ready to keep conversation going. Otherwise it may be easy for discussion to get off track.
6. Be ready with dates in mind that work for your next meeting., and offer to help clean up before you go.

If you’re looking for a way to liven up your book club meetings, you may want to consider inviting an author to connect with your group. More and more writers are looking for ways to meet and talk with their readers, and technology is making it easy to do so even if you don’t live near authors who write books you want to read.

What are some of the reasons you would want to ask an author to join you? You’ll certainly get insight into the characters you read about and their story, as the writer is the ultimate expert on the subject. You may also find out other fascinating facts about research she conducted before writing the book, and you can learn about how books get published.

You may have to do a little detective work to find authors who are willing and able to connect with your group. Here are a few places to do your sleuthing:

• The book jacket. Often you can find out whether an author lives near you and how to get in touch with her simply by reading her bio on the back of the book.
• Your local newspaper. Most newspapers list authors who are coming to town to speak at bookstores and libraries. If your group can’t meet with the author one-on-one, you can still have fun being in the audience when she speaks. Prepare your questions in advance so you can interact in some way.
• Local writing organizations. See if a writing organization in your area has a list of published authors who are members. Then look for books these authors have written that may be appropriate for your group.
• Websites. If an author is willing to connect with reading groups she’ll often say so on her website. You can usually find an email address there so you can send a message asking about her availability.
• Your own friends and acquaintances. If you know someone who knows an author, don’t be shy about asking for an introduction.

Even if the writer you approach doesn’t live near you or doesn’t plan to come to your town in the near future, you may still be able to connect electronically. Many authors are answering questions by email and using Skype to span miles and time zones so they can join reading groups.

Just remember to be respectful of an author’s time when you approach her with your request. Between writing her next book and being with her own family, she probably has a lot of demands on her schedule. So if the answer you get is no, don’t fret. Instead think about other opportunities you can pursue and you’re sure to find success.

Cindy Hudson. Photo by Jill Greenseth

When I read The Year of Goodbyes by Debbie Levy, I was struck by how simplistic yet powerful the pages in Levy’s mother’s poesiealbum were. Recently, I received a note from Levy saying that she’s giving readers the opportunity to create their own pages for posting on her website. Here’s what she has to say:

“Given your interest in The Year of Goodbyes, I wanted to tell you about “The Poesiealbum Project,” a web-based adjunct to the book that gives readers the opportunity to participate in the poesiealbum tradition, so central to my mother’s story.  My hope is to assemble a critical, and growing, mass of entries from people of all ages–from young people responding to The Year of Goodbyes (or simply responding to the poesiealbum tradition), to survivors willing to share brief memories or anecdotes, to participants young and old who attend events I do for the book…here’s the work-in-progress, with its first ‘poesies’ ”

Read my review of this wonderful book, then visit Levy’s site and click on the tab for  to read some of the other entries already posted.

If your group is like most others, you tend to have a set schedule of meeting once a month or so at someone’s home for snacks or a meal and book discussion. As a rule, this is a great way to make sure that everyone can easily mark a date on a calendar and plan to be at each event. But if you’ve been meeting for a while, you may also find yourself a bit bored with the routine. What you may need to liven things up is a field trip.

Field trips are mostly associated with students, and if you have kids you may have even volunteered at your child’s outings a time or two. While a field trip for your book club most likely won’t involve taking a ride on a noisy, bumpy bus, it can accomplish for your group what it’s meant to accomplish for students: enhanced learning in an environment outside the classroom, or in this case outside your home.

What kind of outing could you go on with your book club? The possibilities are truly endless. You can start by looking for any kind of tie in to the book you are reading. You can also do just the opposite: find something your group may have fun doing, and look for a book that offers a tie in. Here are a few ideas for places to look for these tie ins:

Is there a new release movie coming up you think your group would enjoy seeing? If the movie is adapted from a novel, you can read the book first, see the movie, then go for dinner or dessert and coffee after to discuss what you read and how it differed from what you saw.

Is there a restaurant in your area that matches the theme of a book you’re reading? Many ethnic restaurants feature waiters in traditional clothing, photos of the homeland on the wall, and ethnic music, as well as food that gives you a taste of what’s on the menu for characters in a book.

Are there stage productions you would like to see that are based on a novel? Some of my favorite stage adaptations of books have been Huckleberry Finn, The Secret Garden and Peter Pan. Your local theater groups usually post what’s coming up for a whole season, so you can choose a play and plan ahead to read the book.

Is your local art museum featuring a special or regular exhibit that ties into the theme of a book you’d like to read? What other museums are in your area? In my hometown of Portland, for instance, I can find museums dedicated to advertising, Japanese and Chinese immigrants to the area, sports, architecture, art and more. There’s even a 24 hour Church of Elvis!

Can you travel to a nearby historical site? Look for Civil War battlefields, pioneer homesteads, homes of famous authors and so much more.

One of my favorite field trips I went on with my book club came when we read Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver, which focuses on eating locally. Our book club members organized a wine tasting day with a pot-luck lunch focused on ingredients we bought at a local farmers market. We talked to the winegrowers, sipped a bit of their wine and ate incredible food. Over lunch we talked about the book and what we had learned about eating locally as well as ideas we had for changing our food habits going forward. The pictures from that day show all of us with big smiles. The event was such a hit we knew that we’d be looking at other opportunities to take our group on the road at least once a year.

With just a little thought and creativity you’re bound to come up with lots of ideas with appeal to your book club members. Then you can file them away and pull out one or two each year for your group to focus on. Not only will you be keeping boredom at bay, you’ll be creating special memories that you will remember for a long time to come.

Have you ever thought of inviting someone other than the author of the book you read to your book club meeting? When you think about the topics covered in your book and who may be able to give you more information about them, you open up a world of possibilities for guests to invite. For instance, when the members of a mother-daughter book club near Chicago read the book Hoot by Carl Hiaasen, they invited a naturalist from a nearby forest preserve to attend their discussion. He brought a real, live owl, and was able to talk about owl habits and habitats.

Why would you want to bring in an expert? One reason is to learn more about a topic you found interesting when reading your book. It’s also a way to liven up your normal routine every now and then as well as keep your book club meetings dynamic. And there are typically many more experts to be found who can address a topic from your book than there are authors you can get in touch with.

A club in Arizona found that to be true when they read The New York Stories of Edith Wharton. Wharton died in 1937, but her words continue to inspire readers in many ways. The book club moms and girls took a topic from the book, formal manners popular in the late 1800s, and turned it into an opportunity to invite someone to their meeting who was an expert on manners. At their group meeting the girls and moms organized a formal tea party, and their guest had them play games that helped them learn manners, including how to set a formal table and how to introduce one another properly. Everyone in the group loved the meeting, and it brought more depth to the stories they had read.

Here are a few ideas for other book/expert match ups to help you get started on your own brainstorming exercise:

• Framed by Frank Cottrell Boyce—the curator of a local art museum
• Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George—someone who can teach wilderness survival skills
• Red Scarf Girl by Ji-Li Jiang—a history teacher who can talk about China’s Cultural Revolution

More ideas for how to find experts and invite them to your meetings can be found in Book by Book: The Complete Guide to Creating Mother-Daughter Book Clubs.

Cindy Hudson, author of Book by Book: The Complete Guide to Creating Mother-Daughter Book Clubs