Blog Post 4

Blog Post 4--  Book Club Pick and Experience

For this blog post, you will reflect upon the book your group chose, your response to the book, and your response to interacting within a community of readers.

First discuss the book your group chose, why you chose it, and what you thought of it. Then discuss the benefits of reading a book with other readers and the idea of book clubs.



My Experiences

I have been in a book club for several years now.  The group started with teachers who had desks in 505 and branched out to different teachers in the school.  Surprisingly, the original group of teachers no longer work here but as members have gone and others have joined, the group still exists.  We originally tried to meet every month, but have found that to be more and more difficult.  Sometimes months will go by and then someone will send out a text about getting together again.  That is what happened in January.  We had all read Where the Crawdads Sing but had never met to discuss it so after a hiatus we reconvened.


Where the Crawdads Sing first came to my attention through Good Reads and Reese Witherspoon's Hello Sunshine Book Club.  I am always looking for good books for Readers' Choice, for the summer reading lists, and for my own enjoyment.  When I came across this book by Delia Owens, I was intrigued and, must say, I was not disappointed.  The basic premise of the book may seem a little far-fetched but the story is multi-faceted and suspenseful.  The main character is abandoned by her family and  forces to raise herself in the marshes of the Carolina coast.  Kya is six when she watches her mother walk down the lane and out of her family's lives.  Kya's siblings soon leave not wanting to live with their abusive father.  Ultimately, her father disappears and Kya is forced to survive on her own.  Her friends are the gulls and she looks to the marsh and sea for solace and companionship.  But her world and life are not completely isolated from humans and as she grows up Kya begins to develop relationships that will affect her in more ways than she understands.

There is something for everyone in this book.  There is mystery.  Chase Andrews, a local favorite son and football star, is found dead and the resulting investigation soon involves Kya.  There is a legal trial.  Kya finds herself accused of Chase's murder.  There is romance and romantic conflict.  Kya's life is intertwined  not only with Chase but also with Tate, the boy who befriended her and taught her to read.  There is a coming of age story as the reader roots for Kya who is forced to be self-reliant and navigate the ways of the world by herself. There is science.  Kya is a naturalist who  closely studies the ways of the marsh and its creatures.  There is poetry. There is resilience. There is suspense.  The book is certainly multi-faceted and deserving of being on the best seller list for over a year.

Book Clubs are also deserving. Oprah has promoted reading for years with her book club through which she has championed authors as well as causes and public consciousness of important issues.  Reese Witherspoon's book club, Hello Sunshine,  was started to focus upon women.  Each month she picks a book that focuses upon the story of a woman.  Her goal is to promote a reading "community propelled by meaningful connections with stories, authors, and fellow members."  Her book club seeks to spark "thought, joy, and conversation online and in real life."  So in 2018, when Crawdads was named a book of the month, I took notice and read it.  I have recommended it to students in this class, friends, fellow teachers including Ms. Brown, and my book club.  As a reader, I appreciate the conversations that book clubs foster within a group of readers.  Oftentimes, others will offer different perspectives that I had not thought of and get me to thinking about the book in new ways. Also, there are times when I like to use the group to bounce off ideas that I have about events in a book or to ask questions about something of which I am unsure.  The discussion of Crawdads was not disappointing as we all had different takes on Kya and her life.  I also had a question about the end for which I sought the opinions of the other members.  Overall, I find that book clubs enrich my reading of a book.

Note:  My most recent book club meeting was this past Wednesday, March 25.  We were supposed to meet at my house to discuss Taylor Reid Jenkins, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, another Reese pick. Unfortunately, the social distancing due to the COVID-19 pandemic prevented us from meeting face to face but we did meet on Zoom.  As you can imagine, we did not really talk about the book, instead we talked with each other about how we were doing and how we were affected by the current situation.  Our community of readers provided support and encouragement for others.  This is another true benefit of book clubs-- they are not just about the books, they are also about the relationships and friendships that we develop with our  fellow readers. 

Happy Reading!

Blog Post 3 -- Review of Free Pick

Topic --  for Blog Post 3 you will be reviewing your free pick book choice.  Inform your readers of what you have read and what you thought of it.  Give your personal response, make a recommendation as to the type of reader who might like it, tell of its unique qualities, don't reveal any spoilers, compare the book to others like it.



My Recent Read-

 Since Readers' Choice started this semester, I have been hearing students talking about a book called This is Where it Ends.  I had not heard of the book before and had no idea what it was about.  After book talks the other day, I had a couple of conversations with students who had read it and highly recommended that I read it too. So yesterday I read it.

This is Where it Ends  by Marieke Nijkampe, captures the 59 minutes in which a school shooting takes place.  It is told from the points of view of several of the students who are at the school and follows their thoughts and actions for those 59 minutes.  The book is suspenseful and kept me reading; in fact, I started and finished the book in one day.  The emotions are intense as is the overall topic.  The book does make a reader question how a school shooter is created and what each of us might do to end this threat to our daily existence.

The characters whose points of view we see include Autumn, the sister of the shooter;  Sylv, her girlfriend; Tomas, Sylv's brother; and Claire, a senior who is outside of the school when the shooting begins.  Each of these characters is linked to the shooter in some way and each experiences the tragedy in a different manner.  The author uses flashbacks to tell the story of these adolescents and the problems that each has experienced leading up to this shooting.  Keeping the different characters straight at times proved difficult and the structure of the book limited the author's ability to fully develop these individuals, but I would still recommend this book to readers of YA literature with a warning that the subject matter is intense and the killing is disturbing in its extent and cruelty.  Tyler, the shooter, has lost touch with his humanity.

It is a sad commentary on modern society that Goodreads  has classified books like this with their own heading, School Shooting Fiction.  Other books with a focus on a school shootings that I have read and would recommend are Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult and Finding Jake by Bryon Riordan.  Unfortunately, school shootings have become part of our world, but that does not mean we must give up hope.  Nijkampe tries to instill hope and redemption in her book through the heroic and human actions of various characters.  Raising awareness about a serious topic, This is Where it Ends makes readers question, "Where does it end?"