Tuesday, July 1, 2008

The Bookies

Bookie
Noun
1. A gambler who accepts and pays off bets (especially on horse races).
2. A specific group of girls who get together to share in the joy of reading.

Two weeks ago a friend and I started a summer reading group for our daughters and a couple of their Achievement Day friends. They meet every other week, because let’s face it, we as parents have a plethora of things to accomplish in the evenings so a weekly gig for the girls wasn’t going to happen.






The girls voted on names for their group and came up with “The Bookies.” When we got home and Ari told DH the name of their group he looked at me and asked if rather than a reading group we were teaching the girls tips and tricks of gambling or how to live a life of crime. :)

So we met two weeks ago at the library and let the girls choose a book. Really I kind of chose the book because I went through and found books that might work for the girls multiple reading levels and then narrowed it down to books that the library had more than one copy of, knowing that the girls would have to share. They got to write down their top two picks and we came up with a winner, The Word Eater by Mary Amato. This book was a little on the easy side for Ari, but not really knowing the other girls reading levels and knowing that at least one of them is two grades lower than her in school I wanted to keep it pretty easy. I am facilitating the first discussion (without having read the book, oops) this evening so we’ll see how it goes and if the girls liked it. Ari read The Naked Mole Rat Letters also by Mary Amato last year for battle of the books at school and liked it much better than this book, so we’ll see what the other girls thought.
The other mom sent out an email this week just telling the girls to bring their book suggestions for the next book so we’ll see how it goes in regards to reading levels and number of books available. It should be fun!


What are your kids reading? Anything these 8-10 year old habitual gamblers might enjoy?

2 comments:

andrew's mom said...

I read The Word Eater to my class when I taught fourth grade and they liked it. I think Ari would love Ida B becuase it's about a tomboyish nature and animal loving girl and her life struggles and problems. Nothing too terrible, but it makes kids stop and think.

the wrath of khandrea said...

my son, stepson, and niece are all around the same age. and they all read like ari- way above grade level. but i know they all enjoyed the gregor series, as well as leven thumps. i've read the gregor books with mika and they're pretty good.
there's always the little house series. i plan to read that with the kids this summer. as soon as i have some kids to read to again... and of course, nancy drew. they're all a little long for younger, unenthusiastic readers. but the little house on the prairie books are an easy read.