Last weekend most of our mother-daughter book club members were able to get away for 24 hours together. As soon as we met at The Oregon Gardens Resort, which is in a huge botanical garden not far from Portland where we live, we were relaxed and happy to be together. The package we bought included [...]

A couple of days ago I talked about an article David Brooks wrote about kids being given books to read during the summer and how it helped their overall performance in school. I’ve also run across another article written by Laura Miller for Salon.com linking books and literacy.
Here’s an excerpt:
“A study recently published in the [...]

A recent column by David Brooks in the New York Times cites a study where researchers sent books home with disadvantaged students for summer reading.  After doing this for three years, they found that these students had significantly higher reading scores than other students. Brooks goes on to talk about other indicators supporting the tremendous [...]

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 [...]

I’m so excited about a new poetry post that was just installed in my yard yesterday. I first saw something like this last year when I was walking around Portland with my husband and daughter. It was a post with a display box, sort of like a home for sale sign but nicer. In the [...]

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 [...]

I’m thrilled to be featured today on Write for a Reader in the Because of a Book column. Writing this gave me the chance to think about the role books have played from the time I first learned to read to the special bond they have helped create with my daughters today. Take a look [...]

You may be interested in reading an article I wrote about how writers can appeal to more than one generation of readers with their books. Mother-daughter book club selections usually have to appeal to both the moms and the daughters. As the number of these clubs grow, writers are more interested in knowing what books [...]

Meryl K. Evans is featuring me today on her blog as part of my continuing WOW! blog tour. The topic: Liven Up Your Stories with Interviews. The tips are for writers, but Meryl is also giving away a copy of Book by Book, so stop by her blog and comment for a chance to win.

Some of the most fun I’ve had with my mother-daughter book club members is when we connected with the authors of the books we read. Sometimes it was during meetings, other times we attended bookstore signings or library readings. Today at The Urban Muse, I’ve posted a guest essay about why authors may want to [...]