A Mother-Daughter Reading Club

Christy was not a reader. Neither was Karen, her mother. So they weren’t excited about the idea of a Homeschool Mother- Daughter Book Club—until they tried it. The dry run, which took place at their home, was so successful that the two have taken part in a second club and are looking forward to a third!

The formula for starting a successful club is this: four or five girls of similar ages, their mothers (age is not an issue here!), a book that they all agree on, and a pair of hostesses with adventuresome spirits. Once the members have committed to reading the book by the day of the club meeting, the mother-daughter teams make their own reading schedules. Karen and Christy set aside reading times through the week. Most days they read on their own. But when Christy got bogged down, Karen would read to her. As the club meeting time drew closer, Christy often read aloud while Mom did the ironing. The other reading teams plugged along too, some making better progress than others, but everyone still keeping her eye on the goal: to have read the whole book by the meeting time.

Plans for what to do at the club meeting evolved as Christy and her mom talked about the novel. The meeting would start with a quiz to see who could match the most characters with quotations from the book. Christy searched for foods mentioned in the novel and then typed out the sections, including page numbers, where she found each one. She and Mom might have to use some imagination, but those sections from the book would determine what they served for refreshments at the meeting. Typed in a special font and printed on colored paper, the quotations made classy looking labels for the different foods. They brainstormed for other ideas and came up with a funny song from the novel’s time period and a game that families of that era used to play.

Excitement was high on the evening of that first Homeschool Mother-Daughter Book Club meeting. Even the few who hadn’t quite finished the book liked getting together, talking about the characters, and comparing favorite parts of the book. Of course, the snacks were a hit too.

The meeting ended with another motherdaughter team’s claiming hostess duty for the next event—and the club continues to meet!