This Mother Daughter Book Club

This book is a GEM. Set in Key West in the 1930s, Turtle tries to join The Diaper Gang-- a group of boys that get paid in candy to babysit babies in their neighborhood. There is so much to talk about in subtle ways with our girls from this book:  the value in boy/girl friendships (proven to reduce risk of rape-- simply by encouraging boy/girl friendships), why boys/girls self-segregate, does gender matter in terms of being good at something, what does family mean, how do you know when to trust someone, is money worth more than people? We had some great discussions with this one.

This book such a little gem.  I assume it's out of print because it's been replaced by The Care and Keeping of You.  This book reads like a fun magazine of empowerment, introspection, and positive self-care.  It opened up some great conversations about what makes someone beautiful, what the difference is between people in magazines and "real" people, and the inner-workings of female friendships.

What a special book! We read The Penderwicks this month and had some great conversations about what people expect from girls versus what individual girls want to do or be respected for.  We talked about how different each of the four sisters were and who they identified with most. After our book talk, we watched a clip from Toddlers in Tiaras and asked the girls what they thought about it-- we talked about what they think their mothers value about them and "What makes your mom proud of you?" and also asked them how they might think the girls in Toddlers in Tiaras feel and what they are learning about what is important.  We then watched a clip from a Shirley Temple movie and asked them to compare.

What a terrific book! Tua (which means peanut) sees an elephant being mistreated and decides to help it escape.  She goes on a daring journey to bring the elephant to safety and learns a lot along the way. The girls mostly enjoyed this book, though they sometimes needed a bit of help understanding some of what was going on, or some of the references. At book club we talked about the welfare of women & girls around the world-- what it's like to stand up for what you know is right, and how we would feel if we were in Tua's situation.

We had a wonderful first-ever meeting of our Mother-Daughter Book Club! We, of course discussed our book Ferdinand-- talking about gender stereotypes, being yourself when everyone else is doing something different, and learning how to be a good ally to LGBT friends and other minority groups.  These girls are ON it and already know so much.  We used the discussion questions in Her Next Chapter. Most importantly, we talked to the girls about how to have a discussion.  We do not need to raise our hands, there are no right or wrong answers, and we want to hear opinions and personal experiences from them! Our book picks for all of 2019 are up under our Book Log section. Next up?   Tua and the Elephant!

Launching December 2018