There are lots of ways for my daughters to stay plugged in these days. But even though they spend a bit of time tuned into their ipods or playing computer games, they are both still interested in playing cards and board games—two activities that keep them engaged while also encouraging family conversation.

That’s why I was particularly interested to learn about the Million Minute Family Challenge. The Million Minute Family Challenge encourages families to play board games and log their minutes doing so between September 1 and the end of the year. The goal: reach one million minutes of board game playing time among families across the U.S. and Canada.

The website is particularly interesting. It contains fun facts, such as how many times your heart beats in 1 million minutes and 1 million minutes in school for most kids stretches between first grade and early in sophomore year. You’ll also find suggestions for board games to play. The favorites around our house are Boggle, Apples to Apples and Mad Gabs.

There’s also a page for parents and another for teachers. And you can  sign up to officially log your minutes of play as a family or with a group of friends. This could be a fun activity for you to plan for a mother-daughter book club meeting this fall.  You might even be inspired to create your own game based on a book you read. That’s what reader Denise did with her book club when her group read The Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett. They created Trivial Pursuit-type questions to go along with the story and quizzed each other at their meeting. Another easy to create game would be to develop Jeopardy-style questions about your book.

Visit the Million Minute Family Challenge Web page for even more ideas.

With school about to start many of you may be thinking of starting a new mother-daughter book club or getting your established group going again after summer break. While making your plans, don’t forget about those important silent members of your group: dads.

Even though dads don’t usually participate in discussions, they can play an important role in helping make your book group successful. How so? Depending on the age of your daughter and whether or not you have other children dads can:

• Entertain your other children and get their meals while you and your daughter attend a meeting.
• Listen in as you read a book club choice, so your whole family can discuss the book.
• Help you get ready when the meeting is hosted at your house, and help you clean up after everyone leaves.
• Take charge of the household if you go away overnight with your group.

When dads get involved they also reap benefits, such as:

• Having dad-only time with siblings when they plan a fun outing to a movie, a restaurant, or a local attraction.
• Building a connection with their daughters when they ask about book club books and talk about some of the issues.
• Expanding their social network by getting to know some of the other dads and siblings of book club members.

Over the years my husband has enjoyed his dad-only time with one daughter almost as much as I’ve enjoyed book group with the other. And we sometimes have great conversations about what’s going on in a book we’re reading. It’s helped us all feel connected in many ways.

There’s an enormous amount of pressure to say yes when someone asks if she can join your mother-daughter book club. The mom or daughter asking may be part of your social circle. She may be someone you really like and think would be an asset to the group. You may also want to avoid being labeled exclusive and be tempted to offer an invitation on the spot. But should you?

If your group hasn’t already talked about adding new members, you will definitely want to bring this issue up at a meeting.Why?  The moms and girls already in your club should have the final say on how big the group will be and who is in it.

Even though you may feel pressured to say yes, there are valid reasons for saying no. Here are a few:

• You like the size of your club and don’t want it to grow any larger.
• You have bonded tightly as a group and don’t want to add new personalities to the mix.
• The new member lives far away, and you want your club members close together so it’s easier for everyone to get to meetings.

Of course, you may also decide that when it comes to book club, the more the merrier. That’s why it’s best to talk about your policy on new members before you’re asked. That way if the answer is yes, you can happily offer an invitation. If it’s no, you can say so right away, and tell the reason why. You may not be able to avoid hurt feelings altogether, but if it’s clear the answer is not personal you’re more likely to make the best of the situation.

The bottom line is, you want to do what’s best to insure the long term success of your group.

When Marci’s mother-daughter book club girls were in fourth grad, their group read Rent a Third Grader by B. B. Hiller. In the book, students raise money to help an old police horse remain part of the community. That story inspired the girls to help their local animal shelter by organizing a bake sale.

In addition to raising $300, Marci believe the girls and moms both learned a lot from the experience. “The girls learned how to put into action the good feelings they got from the book,” says Marci.  “They also had an opportunity to learn about each other in a different environment and see each other out in the world.” Besides spending time on a worthy cause with their daughters, Marci says the moms got to see “individual personalities and passions come out.”

If you haven’t yet volunteered with your book group—mother-daughter or otherwise—this summer may be the perfect time for you to consider taking on a project. Volunteering with children can teach them more than how to be compassionate for others and caring of the world around them. It can also teach them skills, boost their self-confidence, and help them appreciate people of different backgrounds and beliefs. Volunteering as adults helps you work together to build community and meet others who also have an interest in the cause you support.

How can you decide where to focus your efforts? Here are a couple of tips:

• Think about your interests to help you decide where to give your time.  Many non-profit organizations can be broken down into three broad categories: human welfare, environmental welfare, or animal welfare.

• Once you define your broad category, think about the things your group members like to do. For instance, if you all like being outdoors, you can work at a community garden for a local food bank to benefit human welfare. You can help clean up litter from local beaches or riverbanks to help the environment. Contributing to animal welfare may involve participating in a backyard bird count or helping restore a wild habitat.

Because you are all readers, you may decide to focus your efforts on organizations that promote literacy. Or, like Marci’s group, you may be inspired to pitch in after something that inspires you.

Check these online sites for more ideas on how your book club can get involved in helping out:

http://www.handsonnetwork.org/

http://thevolunteerfamily.org/

http://www.volunteermatch.org/

http://liveunited.org/volunteer/

http://idealist.org/

http://www.voa.org/Get-Involved/Volunteer.aspx

Today I wrote a guest post for Reading Group Guides.com about discussing North of Beautiful by Justina Chen Headley, which I recommend for girls aged 14 and older. You can also read my previous review and an interview with Headley.

I was excited to see this recent review of Book by Book: The Complete Guide to Creating Mother-Daughter Book Clubs over at What Is Bridget Reading? Bridget is a book blogger and a librarian, two of my favorite types of people. Thanks for the great review Bridget!

My blog month-long blog tour finishes off with these three great reviews of my guidebook for mother-daughter book club, Book by Book: The Complete Guide to Creating Mother-Daughter Book Clubs.  Click on the links below to read what others are saying:

Helping Moms Connect

Words by Webb

5 Minutes for Books

I’ve had a lot of fun during the last month with guest appearances on lots of blogs that are great from moms, writers, book clubbers and combinations of all the above. for a complete list of blogs and the topics I tackled, see my Articles and Events page, and my page with news about Book by Book.

I remember when my first mother-daughter book club read a book that dealt with teen sex. The moms were pretty freaked out, thinking our 13-year-old daughters were too young to read about kids just a few years older than them having sex. But we soon realized our daughters really wanted to know what their moms thought about it. They would have never brought it up on their own, but when we talked about what the characters in a book did, it was somehow safe to discuss.

Once we got past that initial stumbling block, it really opened the door for our club to read about many things the girls had questions about. I like to think they were better prepared when they encountered some of the issues we discussed in their own lives. Today I’ve posted a guest blog about how reading books helps us connect with our daughters on many important issues of life. You can find it at Helping Moms Connect.

Here’s an article I wrote for Reading Group Guides.com with a few ideas on choosing the books for your mother-daughter book club.

Have you ever thought of volunteering with other members of your book club? You can do something as simple as collect books for an organization dedicated to literacy, or you may be inspired by something you read to spend time helping out a specific cause.

Today on Crazed Mind I give tips and ideas on how to volunteer with your family members or a book club: how to choose your cause, where to find an organization and how to take the ages of your children in mind. Spending time helping out is not just an activity you can do with kids, it’s an activity you can do for them—it helps give them confidence in their ability to do something helpful.