Book+Clubs

Listed below are some of the results I got to my question about how you run your student Book Clubs. Mine is the last entry. There are many ways to run a book club, and we all have to figure out what works best on our particular campus! Thank you to all who responded!!! (I think I might have deleted one or two. If you responded and I didn't list it, please post it!) --- At our high school level, most of the students want to choose their own book and report on it. We are going to ready one book together. I will buy it from fine money. Due to our students circumstances, I do not ask for payment. Since many of the students are in afterschool activities, I have the book club during lunch. I have arranged with the cafeteria to provide pizza and students eat in the LMI.

I buy books from Scholastic with the book fair profit....students check them out and return them.

I started out with the whole book club reading the same book, but now have each lunch reading a different book because I have gone from 20 students to 60 students. - I'm trying something different this year partly because of those same problems last year (leftover books, choosing the book--hard for everyone to agree because it's a big group, etc.). This year we're reading from the same type rather than the exact same book, so we will all read a Classic one month, Mystery the next, Nonfiction, Biography, etc. I also told the students that they can get together in small groups within our club if they would still like to choose to read the same book. Just thought I'd pass on the idea, but not sure at this point how it will work out...good luck :)!!

--- I decided to start book clubs last year. On a whim, I started a 6th grade one, a 7th grade one and 8th grade turned out to be a girls club. the girls were the only ones that came. I talked to a few kids and looked at the latest releases and decided to (last year) Skeleton Creek (6th grade) and then Found. The 8th graders did Evernight and its sequel. the 7th gade one never got off the ground. I found my biggest allies were the reading teachers who talked it up. This year I am going to start off my doing (6th grade) Skeleton Creek, (7th grade) Ghost in the Machine, (8th) Forged by Fire (They just finished Tear of a Tiger in class and the 8th grade Reading teacher suggested this one.) I am going to do Hunger Games next in 8th grade and probably its sequel and go from there. hope this helps

Our school is grades 7-12 so we have two Book Clubs: one for 7&8 and one for 9-12. I solicit suggestions from the students about what they would like to read but I make the final decision. I order the books from Amazon and sell them on a first-come, first-served basis until I sell out. Sometimes I do end up with leftovers and just have to absorb the cost. We have a corporate account set up with Amazon so we get the books at a discounted price. I usually charge $10.00 per student even if the book costs less and put the rest of the money toward lunch. I give the students about 2 weeks to read the book, then we meet in the library during lunch period and the library provides the food. Each Book Club meets 4 times a year. Both clubs have been very popular. We've had the high school group going for 4 years and the junior high group for 2 years. - I am at the HS level. I have the students give me genres, then I make selections based on that. I use my Book Fair money to purchase books. I give the books away and if I am short, they either share or the last ones to come pick-up are on their own for finding them (I usually always have copies in the library though.) I only offer one book club, as I also do one for the staff and it is just too much to do more. Good luck.

- My campus is 6-7-8 and I've decided to do one group for all grades (no Young Adult books) and another for only 7-8 graders. I'm giving them a ballot with a few books already listed, plus a space for an "add-in" title. They are browsing the book fair this week and voting on which books to read together for the year. I've decided to use my book fair profits to get copies of the books and give them to the students. They'll be encouraged to pass them on to a friend when they're finished. I decided not to collect them back for next year, since we'll want to do the same voting process during next year's book fair. They'll be free to the kids who have signed up for our club, but students joining later will have to purchase one or check one out themselves.

We meet after school for one hour, once a month. They have about 3 weeks to read the book (too short for some, too long for others!) We have a free "coffee bar" for the meeting: coffee & cocoa (the works!) and store-bought cookies. They love that! (lids required, though!) My group is only about 15 kids, so this works for me now... if we increase in numbers, we might have to take up $$ for refreshments or something .