Shipbreaker and Ellen Foster

Our little club has been reading up a storm this summer.  In June and July, we read Shipbreaker by Paulo Bacigalupi and Ellen Foster by Kaye Gibbons.


Shipbreaker is set in a future America where the environment as we know it has been irreparably damaged and crews of children and adults scour abandoned tankers and oil derricks for salvageable materials to sell.  What ensues is an adventure story with a young hero who takes on forces beyond his control in order to try to save a friend and himself.  While we are getting a wee bit tired of dystopian fiction, Shipbreaker was nevertheless compelling and well-written, and created scenarios that are interesting to ponder given that it's not too late for us to still make positive change around our use of energy on our planet.

Ellen Foster is a book of a completely different type, and follows the life of the tenacious and spirited title character.  She uses her impressive personal resources to overcome her dysfunctional family and situation, and ultimately perseveres to make herself a safe and loving place in the world.  Ellen Foster is beautifully written and not necessarily intended for a young adult audience, though the main character is a little girl and it is told entirely through her voice.  Our group had a lively discussion that lasted almost two hours, unraveling the complexities of the story and discussing the choices Ellen makes and the consequences of those choices.  While not everyone loved the book, it made for an excellent discussion that had everyone actively involved.

Now we're gearing up for school to start again in August, and will look to September for our next meeting.

Ostrich Boys and Hunger Games

Our most recent gathering was our largest to date.  We had fun meeting in a coffee shop, and we welcomed newest members, Nancy & Natalie, to discuss Ostrich Boys, by Keith Gray.  Set in England, it follows the adventures of three boys on a quest to memorialize their friend.  It provoked some interesting discussion about life and death, personal responsibility in friendships, and how our perceptions may not be the same as other people's perceptions.

The discussion really got lively, though, when it turned to the film and book versions of The Hunger Games.  Almost all the members had either seen the film or read the book or both, and those that hadn't had good reason for waiting.  The girls debated the merits of the film, from the cinematography to the acting to the adaptation of the story, and most members gave it two thumbs up overall.

Liz & Alyssa host our next gathering and choose the next book.

Finding the next good book

Some of our new members asked for resources for finding good book recommendations, and with a bunch of voracious readers like our daughters, it can be a little tricky to find a book that no one else in the group has read.

For a great list of young adult books that are hot off the presses and come highly recommended, check out the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA). Here's their list of award winners and top ten best books for 2011.

You can also browse their list of best books for young adults going all the way back to 1996. (I really like these lists, as they annotate and give brief information about each book. This is how we found A Brief History of Montmaray, which we loved.)

Goodreads.com also has a list of recommended titles for young adults. This is a nice resource because you can browse by year or genre.

There is also a well-established Mother Daughter Book Club site that has dozens of lists that can be searched using a variety of criteria, including the age of the reader. It also has a long list of resources for book clubs.

The International Reading Association also has some lists of recommended titles, but they're organized in pdf formats that have to be downloaded, so it's not as user friendly.

Time flies when you're reading!

Well, it's clear from the date on the last post that it's been almost a year since we updated the blog, but just because we haven't been posting doesn't mean that we haven't been reading and meeting to talk about books!

We've had a great year reading a wide variety of books, from the challenging topic of date rape in Speak, to the true story of family and faith in Mistaken Identity, all the way up to our most recent book - the gruesome Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children. From the sweeping romance and grand adventure of Mrs. Mike to the intriguing mystery behind life on an island in A Brief History of Montmaray, we've met wonderful casts of characters and traveled to settings all over the world.

We've also grown the group from three mother-daughter pairs (Megan & Fiona, Susan & Olivia, and Liz & Alyssa) to six, and we're excited to welcome Therese & Emma, Melissa & Sienna, and Aimee & Isabella.

Therese and Emma are hosting our next gathering, and we look forward to reading Emma's pick for the month, Ostrich Boys.

New Books

We loved Red Scarf Girl and highly recommend it to young readers, though it deals with some painful issues of Communist China. We then read Bright Young Things by Anna Godversen, but our reivews of it were mixed, and although we found it an interesting read, it portrayed unhealthy relationships as normal. We then read When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead. There were mixed reviews about this book as well, but the majority of the club enjoyed it. It dealt with time travel and went further with the ideas is A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L'Engle. It is S and O's turn to choose the next book, and we will tell you what it is and what we think of it after our next meeting.

New book!

We liked Bread and Roses, and reccomend it to young readers! We read Armagedon Summer, by Jane Yolen and Bruce Colleville. We liked it but it was a little dark. Now we are reading Red Scarf Girl, by Ji-Li Jiang. We have not met yet, but will soon.

New book!

We are now reading Bread and Roses, too by Katherine Patterson. we have not met yet, but will soon.