A Book Club for Kids

We have just started on a new little endeavor ... a book club for Thing 2!

It came about after one of the other moms and I were discussing plans for a school photographer. As we got to talking about our girls, she mentioned the idea and I jumped right on board. My Thing 2 has not taken to reading as much as her older sister, so I was ready to go with anything I could possibly do to make the practice more appealing to her.

What's more appealing to an 8 year old girl than a monthly "party"???

Yep, she was right there with me and the book club was born. We found a few others interested and somehow Thing 2 picked the first book. (Which means I got to host the first "meeting"!) The book we read was, "The Princess and the Unicorn" by Carol Hughes.

The book was well-received by my girls - there were even moments when they were laughing out loud as we read together. I have to say that it was much different than I had imagined, but a fun, exciting read just the same. So getting through the book was a piece of cake, and Thing 2 seemed to be motivated to keep going on it, even though it was a big book for her. I probably could have had her read it and then I could have just read it to myself, but seeing their reactions at certain things was priceless and I am glad we were able to take it in together.

The story itself involved a princess, a unicorn, a governess, several fairies and much, much more. I don't want to give out too many details, so if your girls are interested in those things, I am certain they would enjoy this book.

Now ... how do you host a girl's book club?

I had no idea, so hopefully I was close to on-track. This is what we ended up doing:

We started with a discussion of the book. We had a crystal vase with the names of certain character on scraps of papers. The girls picked out names and then discussed those characters. They also shared some of their favorite parts and some of the most exciting or surprising parts. We talked about it for 10 minutes or so and then we did a few activities that we pulled from the book.

The first activity was just to pin the horn on the unicorn - pretty simple! But it was all planned by Thing 1 and Thing 2. Then Thing 1 made the unicorn and horns - she's so awesome!

After that we went outside and tried to learn how to see fairies ... just as the princess had to learn to do in the book. Each girl searched and found several fairies to keep. We also had to search for shoes, since the princess had to search for her shoes at one point in the book.

Then it was time for a treat. We had princess cupcakes, but they didn't have a crown on them, the girls had to make the crowns on their own. We did this because the princess had to learn how to be a princess in the book ... and she had to do it on her own (okay - she had a little help from a fairy). So, the girls made crown and put them on their cupcakes before eating!

And just for fun (mostly because I saw these letters right by the fairies at Michael's) we decorated a big letter with sequins and "jewels". Each girl had their own first initial and they did a lovely job - I was impressed.

And while we were busy doing some of these things, The King was busy getting into the rest of the cupcakes!

HA! What a little stinker!

Anyhow, that is how I did a girl's book club. I am looking forward to see what the others do, but I am also glad to have my turn over with for a little while. This is such a great group of girls ... this should be a wonderful experience for Thing 2 and hopefully instill a love of reading that I haven't been able to help her attain ... yet! We'll see what happens.