This post is for Book Club Boys!  I hope you guys are enjoying Book Club so far.  I know I am.  It’s hard to get up early on Tuesdays, and you guys sure do eat a lot, but in spite of that, it has been fun.  

Please write a comment to tell us all the books you have read so far for book club, a little about each book, and whether or not you liked it and would recommend it to others.  Make an effort with your capitalization, punctuation, and sentence structure, since other people will be reading your response.  Afterwards, you can read each other’s comments, and see if someone else has read something that you’d like to read next. 

P.S. When you agree to pass something along to a friend in book club, please do, and when you sign up to read something, make a sincere effort to read it.  If you find that you just don’t like a book, you can trade it for a better book, but let me know!   Thanks- Ms. Gough

P.S.S.  Some of you owe $5.00 dues!   

Hi!  I’d love to know what, if anything, you read this summer.  Hmmm?  First, let me see if I can answer that question myself.  I definitely read this summer.  I read as much as I can every summer because I enjoy reading, and I have more time to do it in the summer. 

I started out with a book called Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli.  I chose that book for a few reasons.  First, I like another book called Maniac Magee by the same author.  Second, the cover was intriguing- just a stick figure drawing to represent the words “star” and “girl.”  Third, my friend Kimberly was with me in the bookstore when I chose it, and she recommended it. 

Do I recommend Stargirl to you?  Maybe if you are just a little bit of a romantic.  The narrator is male, but Stargirl herself is, of course, the main subject.  Sort of like Maniac Magee, she is a unique character, to say the least.  (Reminded me a lot of a girl in my class last year.  I won’t say who.)  The characters are in high school.  The narrator ends up falling for Stargirl, so there is a love theme there.  It is mostly about popularity, peer pressure, and conforming, or rather not conforming.  If you are the type who prefers to be your own person and stand apart from the crowd, you might appreciate it.

Next I read a Nicholas Sparks book that my aunt gave me when I went by to visit her.  (I took her a book about Muhammed Ali.  She and Itrade books frequently.  She just gave my husband another john Grisham book that he is reading now.)  Nicholas Sparks is one of my favorite authors.  I can’t remember the title of this one, but Sparks is the guy who wrote The Notebook.  I read that book a couple of years ago and finally watched the movie on t.v. this summer.   

Then I read Crash which is also by Jerry Spinelli.  I would definitely recommend it to some of you.  It is about a seventh grade football star who is also a bully.  It is a fast, easy read, in my opinion.  (Once school started, I read Crash to my reading class and they liked it.) 

After that I read A Light in the Forest which is a historical novel.  I first read it when I was in seventh grade.  I remembered that I liked it back then, and since it seemed it might appeal to boys, I decided to read it again.  It is about a white boy who is kidnapped by Native American Indians when he is very young and then returned to his biological family when he is fifteen years old.  The main thing you learn from it is to appreciate different cultures and realize that all cultures have their own beliefs and prejudices.  I had forgotten the ending, and I didn’t like it, although I suppose it was realistic.

Finally, I read a book called Emma and Me.  I read it for one reason.  My mother asked me to.  I bought it for her, and she asked me to read it because she wanted to know what I think of the ending.  I couldn’t turn her down.  Let me just say of all the books I have ever read, this book had one of the most shocking endings.  Wow!  My mother was right about this one.  We enjoyed talking about it together when I finished it.  It is difficult to read in places because it is about child abuse, so I don’t necessarily recommend it for young readers, but it is an excellent book.   

In and between everything else I am reading a book called Reading Don’t Fix No Chevys which is a book about boys and reading.  It is a nonfiction book about a research project done by a couple of teacher/researchers who studied boys and their reading habits and interests.  If you guessed that my book club is part of a research study that I am conducting, you’re right.  So reading this book is just a very small part of my study, but it helps me understand middle school boys a little better. 

Okay, so this turned out to be so long, it should have been a page instead of a post, I guess.  Now, what did you read this summer?  Why did you choose it?  Did you like it?  What was it about?  Do you recommend it?