Do you love to read and wish you had someone to talk to about what you’ve read? Book clubs are great because you might read something that you never would have picked for yourself. Book clubs are also great because you have someone to talk about all of the details. Maybe you can work out what the book was trying to say or just trash a book that you all hated. If you want to start a book club with just your friends it’s easy. If you want to start a book club at your school or your library it might take a little more work, but it’s worth it.
To Start Your Own Book Club:
- Call your friends and ask them if they want to do it.
- Gather 5-15 people and figure out when you can all meet. (Less than five is not really a club and more than 15 makes it hard for everyone to get a chance to talk.)
To Start a Book Club At Your School:
- Find out if your school has a policy or procedure to start a club.
- Find a teacher or librarian willing to be the club advisor.
- Figure our when the group will meet.
- Advertise with posters and by word of mouth to get members.
- Choose the first couple of books that you think will attract a lot of members.
Choosing Books:
1. If you have a group of friends then you might all want to bring a book that you would like the group to read and discuss. The group can vote and choose the book that you are all interested in doing first.
2. If you are trying to attract new members to your group you will want to choose high
profile books that lots of people have read. If many people have already read the book and really want to talk about it, then you will have a good turnout for your first meeting. If you get a lot of people to the first few meetings there is a good chance they will stay for other books.
3. Once your book club is established and you have members your group can decide how it wants to run. Your faculty advisor or a librarian can help you to choose books.
Running A Book Club: Running a book club takes work and you must be prepared. Some things to consider are:
- Where will you get the discussion questions? (Many books have guides online.)
- Where will your club meet?
- Who will provide the snacks?
- What kind of games will you play? (Teen groups work best if you have a icebreaker or other fun game to get everyone comfortable in the group. Not everyone is outgoing and they need to feel safe in the group before they will talk.)
- Work out before the first meeting starts how the group will run and who will start the discussion / keep it going with discussion questions. (Be ready to change your plan and be flexible if the group goes in a different direction than you planned for.)
Here is a link to a great website called Teens Read. They have a lot more information about starting a book club.
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