Book Club fun

I mentioned in a previous post that I’m doing some mentoring on reading with some girls.  The main event is a book club with an older elementary student and her mom.  We read a book and discuss it, do an activity and have a treat that relate to the book in some way.  Because we’ve been having a great time and learning stuff, I thought I’d share the books we’ve done in case someone out there “in the cloud” wants some great ideas. We began with “The Long Winter” by Laura Ingalls Wilder and because it involved being cooped in the cold and having to delay Christmas until the train got through in the spring, we tied the ends of a fleece blanket for charity.  The family had to grind wheat with a coffee grinder all day long to make bread, so we had warm slices of homemade bread.

Next up was “Bud, Not Buddy” by Christopher Paul Curtis and we discussed the Depression and jazz music.  He bases one of the characters on the jazz singer Betty Carter, so we watched this video to see how a jazz band sounds and to hear Betty.  Bud is trying to find his family, so for our activity, we did some family history research at https://familysearch.org/ and watched some of the videos on how young people can get started.  Because Bud has to eat out of tin cans in the Hooverville, we had cookies baked in small iron skillets.

The next month was “Fair Weather” by Richard Peck which involves a visit to the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893.  We decided to have an exposition of our own and invited the whole family, plus my husband to view it.  We each got to display and tell about two things we’ve made or accomplished.  I displayed my first quilt and a scrapbook I made of our 25th anniversary trip.  Because the girls and Aunt Euterpe have a fancy tea and meet Mrs. Palmer at the fair, we had fancy punch and treats on elegant glass plates with matching punch cups.

Our latest adventure was “Everything on a Waffle” by Polly Horvath.  The main character, Primrose, likes to cook and collect recipes so a recipe book was in order.

I collected family recipes from them, typed them up, and printed them to put in binders.  Then we used some of my scrapbook supplies to make covers to insert in the front pocket of the binder.  We labeled the dividers and inserted recipes in the proper places.

For our treat, of course we had to have waffles!  They were topped with a yummy buttermilk syrup that was included in the family recipes.  The rest of the treats were from recipes in the book: chocolate-covered nuts, chow mein noodle cookies, and sugar cookies with lemon zest.  It was super yummy and fun!