I had been worrying throughout the fall that my 13yo wasn’t reading enough. She was doing a lot of rereading old books, leafing through comics, and checking tumblr, but not poring over new novels like years past.
This semester will be different thanks to her co-op activities. A few teens have organized their own weekly book club, and these are their choices:
Howl’s Moving Castle, Diana Wynne Jones
The Fault in Our Stars, John Green
Maze Runner, James Dashner
Chosen, Ted Dekker
The Card Turner, Louis Sachar
The Mortal Instruments, Cassandra Clare
Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
The Golden Compass, Phillip Pullman
The Last Dragonslayer, Jasper Fforde
The Book Thief, Marcus Zusak
What a great list, right? All the books were proposed by the kids – they have excellent taste. So far they have organized their discussions themselves: the first meeting they mapped Maze Runner and for the second one of the kids made a Jeopardy-style game about the book.
For the class I am teaching – and it is kind of interesting having your own kid sitting next to you in class, alternately being a teen among teens and being your kid – the reading list is crazy, but awesome:
Jonathan Swift, “The Ladies Dressing Room” and “A Modest Proposal”; Alexander Pope, “The Rape of the Lock”; P. G. Wodehouse, Code of the Woosters; Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest; Flannery O’ Connor, “A Good Man is Hard to Find”; Chaucer, “The Miller’s Tale”; Kurt Vonnegut, Sirens of Titan; and short works Joseph Addison, Dorothy Parker, Italo Calvino, Woody Allen, Mark Twain, David Sedaris, Edward Gorey, and Garrison Keillor.
I am feeling torn about “The Miller’s Tale.” I did promise flatulence in the class description, but I didn’t count on how hard it would be for a few of the kids to talk about body stuff in front of each other. Looking for substitutes, I Googled “great farts in literary history.” Do not do this unless you have a strong stomach.
On reflection this seems a little light in mood/substance compared to previous reading lists, but after a fall of dystopian literature, that’s probably a good balance.
What Real World? 
I host a girls’ tween book club in our home. It’s so much fun! Each gal selects a book from our list and facilitates the meeting. There’s one hour of discussion and one our of activity and a snack.
I’m thrilled to get more ideas for books here at your blog for our club which will continue in the fall. My books are on my Pinterest site, if you are interested in checking it out.
Possibly the funniest google search I’ve ever seen admitted to (pardon my grammar). 🙂
That book club sounds awesome. My 14yo daughter is currently re-reading The Fault in Our Stars. The first read-through was done in the span of 24 hours. This time she’s savoring it. 🙂 She loves the book and is looking forward to reading Looking For Alaska by the same author. She was really tickled when an online friend said she was assigned TFIOS and had to do a book report on it. “Book reports are kind of dumb, mom.” “Yeah, I agree. Aren’t you glad we can just talk about them instead? :)”
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