Summer Book Discussion Group for Middle School Students (Grades 5-8)
The job of a children’s librarian is never done. Just as I’ve finally caught my breath with a number of programs and projects, the summer planning is looming ahead of me. Each year we offer our rising 5th – 8th graders two different book discussion opportunities. The first is called Literary Lunch and runs for an hour once a week for five consecutive weeks. We normally have a smaller group interested in this program – about 10-12 kids that come each week. These are normally the kids that really enjoy reading and are constantly visiting the library for something new to read.
Our other option for book discussion is a 1/2 hour book discussion, followed by a 1/2 of Library Jeopardy (trivia about books, authors, etc.), and 1/2 hour meeting of our Junior Friends club. We have anywhere from 30 – 45 kids attend this program each week. Often they come more to socialize with friends, but many read the books we offer and enjoy giving us their opinions. For this book discussion, the students are give 2 choices for the week and can pick one that they are most interested in. We keep the book to about 200 pages, in order to allow the kids to successfully read the entire book in a week. So, I now not only have my own “To Be Read” list, but I’m supplementing that with a tower of books for book discussion choices. We always try to provide the kids with a variety of genres – hoping to hit at least something everyone will enjoy from fantasy, science fiction, historical fiction, mystery, realistic fiction, novels in verse, graphic novels, non-fiction, and biographies. We’ve had a lot of success also with realistic fiction books that discuss disabilities. The kids LOVED Rules by Cynthia Lord and we had a great conversation and the kids asked a lot of insightful questions. I think children are often curious but are unsure of how to ask questions and the book discussion was a great forum for them to feel comfortable asking questions and I feel as though they had a better understanding when we were done.
A few of my ideas for this year include:
- Anything But Typical by, Nora Raleigh Baskin
- Around the World by, Matt Phelan
- Phineas Gage: A Gruesome but True Story About Brain Science by, John Fleischman
- Wonder – by, R.J. Palacio
That’s all that’s set in stone, but I just finished Schooled by Gordon Korman and The Watsons Go to Birmingham, 1963 by Christopher Paul Curtis this weekend and both are solid choices. I also just picked up The Book Without Words by Avi. My goal is always to finalize our list early enough that I can begin discussion questions before the Summer Reading Program starts, making my life just a little bit easier come summer.