Tuesday's Tomes: My Latest Reads

 Here are some of the books I have been reading in no particular order.  I have enjoyed them all.

Oh my goodness!  I cannot recommend this one enough.  It was recommended to me by two different people so I put it on hold through Libby at the Dallas Public Library.  Let me just say - this one did not disappoint.  It could have been the fact that this story is about the pack horse librarians in Western Kentucky after the Great Depression.  It could have been how the library not only reshaped the small town in which it was housed, but it reshaped and empowered the women in the surrounding area who were DIRT POOR.  I enjoyed the characters and the story.  I have not read any other books by Jojo Moyes, but I enjoyed this one immensely.

I do enjoy a good Emily Henry romance because she makes me laugh out loud.  I hear there is a Netflix movie based on this book.  So I might have to check that out.  It is a typical rom-com where the loud crazy girl, Poppy, and the straight laced boy, Alex, become friends in college.  After realizing they live in the same hometown and carpool home that first year, they somehow decide an annual summer vacation is the thing to do.  The present day storyline has Poppy and Alex not really talking to each other anymore, and the nonlinear storylines which include each of their 10 different vacations they take together explain what happens.  In a last ditch effort to repair their friendship, Poppy convinces Alex to take one last vacation together to Palm Springs.  However, it is not friendship that Alex wants. Does he get the girl?  Well you know how these stories end. 

Abby Jimenez is another romance author that makes me laugh out loud.  The characters are quick and witty.  I like that in a couple.  This story is about two best friends who like the same girl.  On the night they met, Larissa picks the outgoing and cute Mike over the broody and silent Chris.  As the story goes, Mike is the life of the party but completely unreliable, and Chris is left to pick up the pieces.  Over time, Chris develops feelings for Larissa, but Larissa is still trying to make things work with Mike. Never in a million years do the two guys stay friends when they like the same girl.  This end is a bit more realistic but still ends on a positive note.  

Evolution of a Book Club

For as many years as I have been a librarian, I have had a book club.  I first started out with a 3rd and 4th grade book club, called "The Lunch Bunch." For this book club, I would read aloud Bluebonnet books to the students at lunch once a week.  I would also book talk the other Bluebonnet books encouraging them to read on their own so they could vote for their favorite when the time came.  These students were recommended by their teachers, and I had about 25 students in that book club each year I was an elementary librarian.

Then I jumped to high school when the vampire series, Twilight, was popular.  Of course, that was our first book.  I was new to the campus, and I relied on the students to bring their own copies of the books.  That seemed to work for the first few years.  We went through the Twilight series, the original Percy Jackson series, The Vampire Academy, and others.  About half way through my tenure at that high school, I noticed the students weren't bringing their books, and sometimes not reading the "book of the month."  So I revamped the club again, and we did "genre of the month" where students picked a book from the assigned genre.  That worked out better because students could bring a book or check one out from our library.  We had plenty of books in each genre, and everyone could have one.

Then I moved to a different high school and had to build a culture of reading before establishing a book club.  So a couple of years later, the 40 Book Pledge began. This is loosely based on "The Book Whisperer," and I know I have blogged about this club before.  

Here are those blogs if you want some context . . . 

40 Book Pledge

Half Way Through the 40 Book Pledge

End of the 40 Book Pledge

40 Book Pledge: Virtual Edition

Book Club is Going Strong

Now the newest evolution has come this year.  This year the name of our book club is "Jags Read."  Students are allowed to decide which challenge they want to pursue.  We still have the 40 book challenge, and this year I have added the 6000 minute challenge.  Both challenges are documented in Beanstack, which is the reading incentive program our district bought 2 years ago.  I was finding that some students breezed through the 40 book challenge, especially those who chose manga, graphic novels, and comic books.  Those students who loved fantasy, realistic fiction, or even mysteries found themselves short at the end of the year.  So those students can now count minutes instead of books.  I want to encourage students to read what they like, not what is short.  We just had our first meeting this morning.  Everyone who came seems to be receptive to the change.  I'm not going to lie, it will be so much easier utilizing Beanstack for the documentation.  I don't anticipate that our meetings will change any.  We will still get together twice a month (unless there is a big holiday) and just talk about books. 

It has been quite the journey from a Bluebonnet reading club, to a traditional monthly reading club, to a genre reading club, to the 40 Book Pledge, and then to Jags Read.  I guess the important element in each of these clubs is to encourage reading.

Have a great day!