Not sure where you go to school, but generally you don't need the school's permission to have a book club, unless you want to do it during the school day. You can register as a club (you generally do need a faculty advisor, try one of the English teachers) and then sign up to use a classroom after school (like all the other clubs/organizations do), or you can hold the book club at someone's house, after school or on a weekend.
What kind of books do you want to share with your friends?
I ask because there are all sorts of books online for free nowadays, as well as what your public and school libraries have. (Keep in mind that many libraries can do an interlibrary loan as well.) Readers can also share books, if someone is done with their copy before the group meets.
You don't necessarily need to provide the books for the group to read, as long as you can see that multiple copies of the book are available through those three sources.
You should sit down and think through some of the structure the book club will have - How often will you meet? Will you discuss a new book each time, or a set of chapters in a longer book? Will you structure it with some kind of questions to go in and start discussions over? (an English teacher can probably help you with some of these.) Who gets to pick the book? Are there rules around picking a book? Length, genre, how old it is and other details are easy enough to decide on. Leave your parameters wide and you'll get more participation.
You can also start out as a genre book club - you want to share your favorite books with others, right? It's reasonable to think that other kids want the same thing. So, your first meeting can be a genre like 'fantasy' and everyone can come and talk about their favorite books in that genre and share that with the group.
You can do a book/movie club where the group reads a book, then discusses it and watches the movie that was made from the book - watch the movie at a second meeting if you want to split the book discussion from the movie-watching. After the movie, the group can discuss the differences between the book and the movie and whether the changes were good/bad for the storyline or changed it to an entirely different plot entirely. (Jumper by Steven Gould and the movie of the same name is a great example for this.) There are plenty of books that have been made into movies to pick from. If you want to share the cost of the movie rental, ask each person to contribute $1, then rent the movie and spend the difference on popcorn for the movie.
Food and drink make meetings a bit more fun - you can run it 'potluck' and ask each person to bring something to share (a bottle of soda, a pkg of cookies, a bag of chips, bottled water, etc.), don't forget plates/napkins/cups too! Or you can just skip the food/drink entirely and expect people to bring their own. In terms of generating enthusiasm, though, I would suggest that at least your first meeting have some munchies %26amp; drinks.
I think your teachers and librarians will be more than happy to help you to come up with ideas of books, discussion questions, and even in helping you with ideas to structure the group, I'm sure that there are things I haven't even thought of. = )
The kicker will be getting kids to participate - be creative - ask your friends if they are interested - post some flyers around school - etc. You can use a site like Yahoo Groups or, even better, www.GoodReads.com to set up a discussion group online for your group. Then you can link to books and to a ton of other readers who are also bibliophiles and can answer any question you might have. (Keep in mind it is meant to be a site for grown-ups, so book reviews are not censored for children.)
I recently heard there that the classic graphic novel "Watchmen" is currently being made into a movie (think Cold War, nuclear threat and caped crusaders). That would make a cool read/watch event once it is out.
Anyways, good luck with it!
Below are some resources for free e-books:
Project Gutenberg www.gutenberg.org
Baen Free Library www.baen.com/library/defaultTitles.htm
ManyBooks.net http://manybooks.net/
Internet Archive www.archive.org
There are probably more out there...check out google. = )
Also, besides www.GoodReads.com another good site is www.Paperbackswap.com for discussions/questions and to pick up copies of paper books (for the cost of postage, and the willingness to trade some of your own books.)
talk to your principal,then make tons of flyers.you should also talk to your friends to pitch in!:]
Report Abuse
I want to start a book club at my school how to begin?Wow, I might start a club at my school. Yet we already have a book club. I will think of something, thanks for the tips!
Report Abuse
Don't use Goodreads, they will try to hack your Yahoo! account. I had to change my Yahoo! password.
Report Abuse
I want to start a book club at my school how to begin?good info
Report Abuse
too dang long. hahha
Report Abuse
What's a book club? A bunch of people go there and..read?
Report Abuse
You could make a booklet and give them out to people. Write the rules and things you would like to share in it, and print out lots of copies, and give them to your classmates. You could make these on microsoft word, publisher, or any computer program that can do it.
Good luck, hope this helps.
Make fliers and give them to everyone.More than likely you'll have to do this after school,though
No comments:
Post a Comment