Why Be in a Mother-Daughter Book Club—Reason #2

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Yesterday I talked about how being in a mother-daughter book club can help you and your daughter stay closer through the years. Today I’ll discuss how your book club can expand your ties to your community as well. How does that work?

When you ask other moms and daughters to join your club, you broaden your connections with the people around you. Maybe they come from your daughter’s school, or your church group, or a Girl Scout troop. Maybe they are friends that you don’t see often enough. Either way, when you forge a group, you start to create a support system for each other that will probably manifest itself in ways you can’t even imagine at first. But over the years you’ll probably find yourself turning to the other mothers in your club when you want to get someone’s else’s take on issues at school, or you need advice on finding a new dentist or pediatrician, or you need feedback on your disciplinary approach. Your book club moms have the potential to be your sounding board and your best resource.

Plus, your daughters have other adults who can be a resource when they need advice. Having them know there’s a whole circle of women ready to step in and help them out when they need is a great support for them as they grow. My daughter even got a recommendation from one of the moms in our book club when she was submitting an essay for a college scholarship a few months ago.

You can also spread out into the community at large. One way to do that is connect with a book expert to recommend books for your group. Who is a book expert? Maybe it’s your school librarian, or the youth librarian at your local branch of the public library. Maybe it’s your favorite bookseller. Establish a connection so your expert can get a feel for what works and doesn’t work with your group. Over time she can recommend new books for your or direct you to classics to check out.

When you expand the relationships you and your daughter have with the community around you, it can enrich your experience and help you form friendships that may last the rest of your life. That’s a pretty big benefit.

Why Be in a Mother-Daughter Book Club—Reason #1

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Yesterday I talked about going into detail this week about the benefits of being in a mother-daughter book club. I wasn’t focused on these benefits when I started my own clubs eight and five years ago, but I definitely believe knowing them can convince others to start new mother-daughter book clubs. In my guidebook, Book by Book, I quote many moms in book clubs around the country and each has her own take about what she sees as being the most important reason she loves being in her book club. I found that many of these reasons can be grouped together in broader categories, and I’ve whittled those down to three. Today I’ll talk about the first one.

Reason #1 to be in a mother-daughter book club—It allows you to maintain a close relationship with your daughter. This is a big one, not only in importance, but in ways the benefits come out. When you spend time reading together, or reading separately but talking about the book before you attend book club, you carve out special time just for the two of you in your family. You say to your daughter, “Spending time with you is important to me, and I’m willing to get rid of all the distractions of daily life to focus on this right now.” You know what I mean about the distractions of daily life. Getting home from work, doing laundry, cooking dinner, driving to kids’ activities, keeping up with household paperwork. There is truly no end to the mundane tasks that can dominate a day and pull your attention away from true conversation.

I’m as guilty as anyone of only half listening sometimes as my daughters talk about their school days or homework or other things on their minds. And I know my daughters tune me out sometimes when I’m talking to them too. But I find that when we set aside time for our book, we both focus on each other. And that leads to conversation about issues that come up in the books. Which leads to conversations about issues they are dealing with themselves or that one of their friends has experienced.

I have found out so much about my daughters and their lives while discussing  book club books. And it’s not always serious. Sometimes we laugh so hard at the words we’re reading that we have to put the book down until we recover. Sometimes we look things up that we read about so we can learn more about a topic. Sometimes we’re inspired to read more books by the same author. And sometimes we just agree that we don’t much care for what we’re reading.

Does this mean we have a perfect relationship with no arguments and in-depth conversations when we want them? That’s too much of a fairy tale story. But I do believe that the years we have spent in book club has given us so many great shared experiences that we are closer than we may otherwise be.

Benefits of a Mother-Daughter Book Club

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This morning I had the chance to speak about mother-daughter book clubs on a Portland television show, AM  Northwest. While prepping for the program, I was very focused on why moms and daughters want to be in book clubs together as well as the logistics of how to make it happen.

While there are probably as many reasons for being in a book club as there are moms and daughters in them (and I talk about quite a few of those reasons in Book by Book), after talking with club members all over the country I have found three overriding benefits:

  • Mother-daughter book clubs can help you stay closer to your daughter.
  • They provide a way to connect with the broader community around you.
  • They help your daughter develop her literacy skills, which can lead to greater success in school.

Each day during the rest of this week, I’ll highlight a single benefit and discuss it in detail. As I talk about each benefit, it would be great if any of you in mother-daughter book clubs add your own comments about your own experiences and list other benefits you see from being in your club.

Stay tuned!

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Read a Banned Book in Honor of Banned Books Week

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Once again the American Library Association is calling attention to books that are taken off of library shelves with Banned Book Week. One of my favorites on the top ten list from last year is the book series referred to as His Dark Materials by Phillip Pullman. This includes The Golden Compass, The Subtle Kinfe and The Amber Spyglass. I’ve read these books to both my daughters and found them to be thought provoking and highly original.

On the Web site for Banned Books Week you can find information about books banned in certain years, or specific decades. You can also check a list of the most banned classics. Check out the ALA’s site to find which of your favorite books are on the lists.

Book Review and Discussion Questions: Dear Big V by Ellen Leroe

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Dear Big V

Courtney Condon is a junior who is suddenly facing a lot of issues. The school club she started a year ago for students committed to staying virgins until marriage is being taken over by a new girl who wants to ramp us the club’s profile and be more confrontational. Her mother won’t talk about sex, and she acts as though it’s the cause of all evil. To make things worse, Courtney finds her own resolve weakening as she becomes attracted to the cutest boy in school, who has a reputation as a “player.”

As she navigates the minefields all around her she turns to the “Big V,” her virginity, for advice, and she’s surprised to find it sometimes answers back. Courtney’s observations about the world around her are often laugh-out-loud funny. Reminiscent of Angus, Thongs and Full Frontal Snogging (Louise Rennison), Dear Big V by Ellen W. Leroe is for older girls who will appreciate the frank treatment of conflict between hormones and values.

The issues are definitely in your face, but the book provides a great forum for moms to talk with their high school daughters about important issues: premarital sex, appropriate behavior at school dances, sexual abuse, normal sexual feelings, dating, “good girls/bad girls,” seeing issues in black and white, and family rules. Fiction is a great way to address topics that have the potential to embarrass moms and daughters and inhibit frank discussions. Group conversation about these topics is also a great way to take the pulse of your daughter’s peers and other moms.

The author, Ellen W. Leroe, has developed some great discussion questions to go with Dear Big V that should be really helpful when discussing the book. Here they are:

  1. In the novel, Courtney talks to her Big V and the Big V sometimes answers her. Did this surprise you in a positive way, or prove distracting?
  2. Have you ever wished that you could speak to your virginity the way Courtney did? If so, what questions would you ask? Or perhaps you would like to communicate with another personality trait or quality about yourself in order to understand your behavior. What would that trait be, and why?
  3. Were the individual members of the Condon family fleshed out enough, and did their personal stories work to enhance Courtney’s problem with her mother?
  4. Did Maggie Condon, Court’s mom, seem realistic or was her stress about abstinence over-the-top?
  5. Was Courtney’s antagonistic relationship with Poe one you could believe? Did you identify with the clashes between the two girls, and if so, how? If not, why not?
  6. Mollie and Rob (“Roblie”) are depicted humorously throughout the book. Did that detract from the seriousness of their conflict whether to sleep with each other for the first time?
  7. Courtney strongly resents Lance “love ‘em and leave ‘em” Lindsey until she gets to know him better at Carlos Mesa’s party. Could you relate to her change of heart when she feels an unexpected physical attraction to him?
  8. Courtney sips beer at the party and dances closely with Lance, then later makes out with him in his car. How do you feel about her choices?
  9. Maggie Condon flips out when she catches Courtney dressed in provocative clothes, kissing Lance, and smelling of alcohol. Does this reaction ring true after you discover that Maggie Condon had been sexually molested by her uncle?
  10. Courtney and her mom are open in expressing their negative emotions during mother-daughter arguments. Can you see both sides to each character’s strong stand, and why mother and daughter feel the way they do?
  11. Many characters in Dear Big V keep secrets, one of the biggest being Maggie Condon’s abusive relationship with her uncle. What would have happened if Courtney’s mom had opened up to her family about her childhood sexual abuse at the beginning of the story, instead of keeping it hidden? Would that have changed Court and Cody’s reactions to their mother’s strict religious views?
  12. Courtney lies to her mother on certain occasions. Are any of these lies justified? If not, what would you have done in her place?
  13. Why is Courtney so angry when she learns that Mollie is planning to sleep with Rob on his birthday? And does her reaction change when she feels physically attracted to Lance?
  14. At the end of the book, Courtney is angered and hurt when Lance shows up with a number of girls for their date to Sadie’s dance. Yet she still is torn about staying with him as one of his dates. Did this indecision seem realistic?
  15. Do you think Court’s deciding to stay true to her values was a hard one for her to make? What decision would you have made in her place, and do you think she made the right choice in leaving with Mark to be with her mother?
  16. In the epilogue, Court and Andy resign from Donuts and Coffee when Poe takes it over. Was that a good choice on their parts, or should they have stayed in the club? If so, what actions would you have liked them to take to change Poe’s leadership?
  17. Discuss the way or ways Courtney changed at the end of the story. Who or what affected these changes the most, and why?
  18. Did the ending of the novel tie up all the loose ends, or were there still some questions left unanswered? If so, what were they?
  19. How did you come away feeling about the main characters (Courtney, Maggie Condon, Lance, Mark, Mollie, Poe)? Did all of them experience various degrees of growth or change, or only some? Did Courtney change the most after her experiences with Lance?
  20. What do you think the odds are that Courtney will start talking to her Big V again once she becomes romantically involved with Mark?

Book Review: The Real Real by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus

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The Real Real

Jesse is a senior at a high school in the Hamptons where she sees lots of celebrities and other wealthy people drop in for vacation. Life for most of the locals is anything but glamorous, that is until TV network XTV decides to train its cameras on the students in Jesse’s high school. What they want is real teens, doing real things in their real lives. Everyone at the school tries out, but Jesse is sure that she won’t be among the chosen ones.

When the line-up is announced, there’s no surprise that the school’s hottest teens made the list—Nico, Jase, Rick and Melanie—but Jess is surprised to find that she’s been picked too. While none of Jesse’s friends made the list, she’s excited that the guy she has a crush on, Drew, did.

While having the cameras film her every move is kind of a pain, it’s also kind of glamorous and at first everything goes well. But when real teens doing real things in real life proves to be really boring, the producers at XTV decide to shake things up by orchestrating real drama. The ensuing events may make for interesting television, but the effect they have on Jesse and the other stars of the show are anything but expected.

Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus, the bestselling authors of The Nanny Diaries, have written a book that should resonate with reality TV viewers, and it feels as though we really are behind the scenes of a reality TV show. The teens in The Real Real aren’t perfect, in fact it can be frustrating to watch as some of them make some pretty big mistakes. But then you realize just how much the adults in the equation fail them and contribute to the mistakes in so many ways. Recommended for mother-daughter book clubs with girls 15 and up.

Book Review: Shock Point by April Henry

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Shock Point

Sixteen-year-old Cassie is being kidnapped by two men in a van parked in her driveway. She fights like mad until her mother shows up with a suitcase, letting Cassie know she’s being sent off to a school for troubled teens. It seems that Cassie’s step-dad, psychiatrist Rick, has found crystal meth in Cassie’s room, so he’s found a place that will help her turn her life around.

But Cassie has never used drugs, and the school she’s being sent to in Mexico is more like a prison and less like the tropical spa Cassie’s mom thinks it is. Cassie soon finds out there’s a slim chance she’ll even make it out before she turns 18. Can she find a way to escape and tell the world the secret she discovered about Rick before he sent her away?

Shock Point by April Henry opens with an adrenaline rush and doesn’t let up until the last page is turned. Henry offers a glimpse into the abuse that’s possible when teens are sent out of the country to be reprogrammed by parents who don’t really know or don’t really care about the means used to accomplish the goal. It’s a cautionary tale as well as an adventure story of how one teen fought back.

Book Review: White Sands, Red Menace by Ellen Klages

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White Sands

It’s such a pleasure to read a sequel that lives up to and possibly even surpasses the original. White Sands, Red Menace, Ellen Klages’s follow up to The Green Glass Sea is a wonderful continuation of Suze Gordon and Dewey Kerrigan’s story.

When The Green Glass Sea ends, Dewey’s dad has died and the Gordons have taken her in. With World War II over and the atom bomb no longer a secret, they move from Los Alamos to Alamogordo, New Mexico, where Suze’s dad is one of the General Electric scientists working with the Army to perfect a rocket that can go into space and carry a nuclear bomb. After seeing the results of their work in Los Alamos, Suze’s mom, Terry Gordon, works to let the world know of the dangers of atomic bombs. She’s fighting a rising tide of Americans’ fascination with all things atomic.

Suze and Dewey are starting all over again at a new school and hoping to fit in better than they did at Los Alamos. They have each other, but they hope to make new friends as well. Klages has done a masterful job of capturing the time period and the small town in New Mexico in which the story takes place. It was a time when kids had a lot of freedom to roam, time on their hands and not a lot of money or electronic attractions. This often meant they had to get creative to kill their boredom.

Dewey’s interest and ability in science pairs well with Suze’s interest and ability in art. In their attic room, they go to work on a wall that showcases both their talents. The story moves at a leisurely pace that’s somewhat like the slow summer days the girls experience at the beginning of the book, and I found myself matching my reading pace to their exploits. I also found myself dreaming of a time that was simpler in many ways and more complicated in others.

There are also plenty of family dynamics for mothers and daughters to discuss: the tension between Suze’s parents as her mom becomes more pacifist and her dad is caught up in the atomic craze. The tension between the two girls over parental love and attention and what makes a family. The tension between whites and those of Mexican descent in this small New Mexican town. It all adds up to a great book to read and talk about.

 

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