Books have been on my mind. In the last few weeks I was lucky enough to win Jane in Bloom by Deborah Lytton through Cindy Hudson’s Mother-Daughter Book Club site and two writer books from Christina Katz’ Writer Mama site. Thanks gals!
I also got my copy of Cindy’s Book by Book: The Complete Guide to Creating Mother-Daughter Book Clubs. And in thinking about her perspective on sharing books with daughters, I reflected on our family’s book sharing.
On our bicycling trips, each person gets to take one book in their pannier. So after someone finishes their book, we often trade. Then we can operate as a family book club, discussing what we’ve read in the tent at night or over peanut butter sandwiches at lunch. I like reading the young adult literature my kids have read – I get to know more about what they’re experiencing, I read books I would not have ordinarily picked up, and we have interesting discussions.
When we lived in Mexico we shared even more books, because English language books were hard to come by. We packed 40 books along with us, then shared many of them. My son even made a calendar and filled in when he would read each book, so as to make them last the length of the trip (didn’t work, he sped through the books and we had to start trading with other families).
How often do families read the same book at home? For us, the Harry Potter books, but not too many others. But on a trip where space and weight dictate condensing our book possibilities? Family book club happens.
Sharing and talking about books as a family is a great idea Laural, and I like the way you refer to it as a family book club. We sometimes share books on vacation too, when space is limited and the desire to read is not. Harry Potter was a wonderful read aloud for everyone in our family as well, but it’s often difficult to satisfy all the adult/child/male/female readers you may have. Here are a few more that were good reads for us:
Boy by Roald Dahl
A Year Down Yonder by Richard Peck
Framed by Frank Cottrell Boyce
Pretty much anything by those three authors can be satisfying family reads.