The Buzzing World of Book Clubs

In today’s world, book clubs have become the in-thing. Parents are working full-time, so they want their children to be engaged in one activity or the other.

If a child is interested in sports, then he/she enrols in various sports activities like swimming, tennis, basketball, football etc. and enjoys their sport to the fullest.

Some other children may be interested in doing art and craft activities for which they are sent to painting, drawing, sculpting etc. Similarly, children with musical interests enrol for music classes.

Thus, each child has different attitudes and aptitudes when it comes to activities. That’s why when some children show great interest in books, they must be encouraged and made to join a book club.

In a book club, there are various activities held on a day-to-day basis. There are reading sessions, discussions on books, fun and games etc. Children and their parents can enjoy these activities from time to time.

A book club is a heavenly place for a book-loving child. They can not only bring in their books to read but can also exchange them with other kids. This way, a child can read a variety of books in a week.

Running a book club can be quite stressful sometimes. Although the setting up part is quite easy, attracting parents and children is a whole other thing.

In book clubs, children also pick out their favourite storybooks that they want to read next. People running the club even assign small tasks to children as homework that they must finish and be ready with once they are back.

Parents usually enrol their children in book clubs during summer vacations and children look forward to making new friends and sharing all their news.

Let’s look at some of the activities that happen in a book club apart from the ones mentioned below.

1. To start, everyone first meets each other and introductions are exchanged. After this, if the club is a relatively new one, then a name is also sought for it from the members who have joined. After a sufficient number of votes for a particular name, the name is then finalized for the same.

2. Secondly, when running a book club, make sure that you select books that are readable and below the 300-page mark. In this way, it will be easier to hold discussions with children or teens.

3. Think of fun ways to celebrate the finishing of a book with the children. Throw a small party or just dance your hearts away. Encourage children to have fun in their special ways.

4. When running a book club, make sure it’s always in a new spot in town. Keeping the meetings at each other’s homes can be quite tedious, even for children. You can even organize small trips to the nearby park or zoo and keep your meetings there as well.

5. Now with technology easily available on our hands, we can simply make a Google calendar and put up our meeting schedule there. If one or the other participant cannot make it for the meeting on that day, then their parent can put in a note informing the owner of the same.

6. If you are about to discuss a difficult or serious storybook with the kids, then it’s best to start the day by playing some games with them. This will make the atmosphere conducive for kids to settle down for the book discussion.

7. To make your book club ultra-successful, try to choose the authors local to your region and also pick newly published books by different authors around the world. Doing this will keep the children’s interest piqued at all times and they will return again and again for more.

8. If you have too many children in your book club, then divide everyone into groups of 5 or 10. This way, you can keep a better watch over them and they can involve in the activities in a better way. Also, if you want to shuffle up the children, you can do that as well. This will allow children to work with others of their age and with different temperaments on various activities.

9. Do not read books with a similar theme all the time. Try and mix up things as children believe in novelty and want a new theme every time. So, bring in new books during every meeting, read them out to children, ask them to read the entire book, and then come up with the lessons they learned from it.

10. And finally, if you feel the book club is drifting off in another direction instead of the main topic, then give the children a break by having a small lunch break. Ask children what they have brought in their tiffins for lunch. Children get enthusiastic when asked about their lunches and describe them in the minutest detail as well.

11. Ask children what are some of the themes that they enjoy and pick out the books you think will keep them engaged throughout the session. Try to keep the session short and sweet as children tend to get bored quite quickly.

12. Arrange some activities for the parents that they can enjoy along with their children. Keeping such activities once a month can help strengthen the bond between parents and children.

So, this is how a book club functions and the various activities that take place in it. If you find your child absorbed in the world of books, then enrolling in a book club will surely not be a bad idea at all. So, enjoy seeing your little one absorbed in a land of books and activities.