New Book Review: Brooklyn Bridge by Karen Hesse

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Brooklyn Bridge

Fourteen-year-old Joseph Michtom knows he’s one of the lucky ones in New York during the early 1900s. He’s the son of a successful Russian immigrant. He’s got a warm place to live, enough food so he doesn’t go hungry, and family to love him. Although sometimes he doesn’t feel so lucky, because his parents no longer spend much time with him now that they are consumed with their new venture—sewing and selling as many of the new “Teddy bears” as they can. Joseph’s parents came up with the idea for creating the cuddly animals after President Theodore Roosevelt refused to shoot a cornered bear while on a bear hunt.

Joseph’s family has found new wealth and prestige from their invention, but the boys in the neighborhood treat Joseph differently, as though he’s changed from the same old Joe who has always been a friend. Joe spends a lot of time with his sister Emily and their baby brother Benjamin. Joe and Emily dream of going to Coney Island one day, but it doesn’t seem as though their parents will ever take enough time off to take them there.

Interspersed with Joe’s story are vignettes of homeless children living under the Brooklyn Bridge. They leave home for many reasons, either they are abused or orphaned or crippled in some way, but they find shelter and solace with each other.

Karen Hesse’s novel Brooklyn Bridge is a wonderful portrait of family in its many facets as well as the story of the struggle of immigrants to leave their old lives behind and fit into their new country. It paints a rich picture of Brooklyn in the early 1900s. We get a picture of life in Russia that many of Joseph’s friends and family left, and of his aunt who worked tirelessly so that many could leave their homeland and find opportunity in the U.S. There’s a strong sense of family obligations, helping out your fellow man, and showing respect to adults. Issues to discuss with mother-daughter book clubs include homelessness, historical events in Russia and the U.S., immigration, sibling relationships and family dynamics. Highly recommended for clubs with girls aged 9 to 12.

Why Be in a Mother-Daughter Book Club Reason #3

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In the last couple of days, I’ve been talking about reasons to be in a mother-daughter book club. Every week I hear from someone who is starting a club or has been in a club for a while. Every one talks about what they want to get from the the club they’re starting or what they find so special about being in a book club with a daughter. While each of those reasons is personal in its own way, each also falls under a broad category as well. Here’s a recap of the first two of those main reasons.

Being in a mother-daughter book club allows you to:

  • Stay closer to your daughter as she grows
  • Connect to the broader community around you

Today we’ll talk about the third main reason:

  • Mother-daughter book clubs promote literacy in general.

A couple of years ago Scholastic released the results of a reading study that show children who read for fun are more likely to think of themselves as smart and good students who can succeed in school. Maybe not so surprising. But what is surprising, is that the number of kids who say they read for fun is really high only until about the age of eight. Beginning at nine, those numbers start to drop off, and they decline even more in middle school and high school.

Mother-daughter book clubscan counteract that trend, because they are a great way to keep your daughter reading for fun. Especially when you consider that nine (the age reading for fun begins to drop) is the “ideal age” if there is one to start a mother-daughter book club.

And it’s not just the reading that can benefit your daughter in school. It’s the talking too. When she discusses the books she has read with your group, she’s learning how to express her opinion and back it up. She gets to hone her speaking skills in a group, something that can really help her out when making presentations for research projects. Mother-daughter book clubs give her a safe environment where the pressure to perform may not feel like it has graded consequences.

Over the years I’ve watched as both of my daughters have become more confident at speaking up about issues to discuss in books we’ve read. I know of at least one mother-daughter book club that started because the moms wanted to encourage their daughters to speak up in class more. They had gotten feedback from teachers that their daughters’ school performance was being hurt by lack of participation in class discussion. These moms didn’t start until middle school, yet they felt their club really helped their daughters learn to speak out confidently. Now that’s a pretty large endorsement.

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.

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