YMB #74 Celebrate Books: A Conversation with Mary Wilson

Pam: This is Your Morning Basket where we help you bring Truth, Goodness and Beauty to your homeschool day. Hi everyone and welcome to Episode 74 of the Your Morning Basket Podcast. I’m Pam Barnhill, your host and I am so happy that you are joining me here today. On today’s episode of the podcast, I get to interview Mary Wilson from celebrateabook.com. Mary is a good friend of mine and I have been watching her work with book celebrations for a couple of years now and I have to tell you what she’s doing looks like a ton of fun. I wanted her to come on today to talk to us a little bit about why we would want to celebrate books, what she means by celebrating a book and then talk about ideas for big book celebrations, as well as ideas for small book celebrations that you could do every single week during your morning basket time because you can celebrate a book without going overboard as well. It was a really fun conversation. I think you’re going to enjoy it and we’ll get on with it right after this word from our sponsor.

This episode of the Your Morning Basket Podcast is brought to you by the Traveling Through the Pages free summer reading program. Now, this summer reading program was designed by myself and my good friend Jessica Lawton who writes all the Morning Time plans for the Your Morning Basket Plus subscription. We came up with this reading program a few years ago in order to encourage kids to read widely across different genres through the summer and so we have a special packet that you can come and download absolutely free that has a passport that your kids can fill out as they read from our various reading suggestions and different genre ideas throughout the summer. Now, also in the packet is a downloadable certificate, some bookmarks for your kids, different reading ideas and little reading scavenger hunts, and also some celebration tickets where you can celebrate reading with your kids and the different milestones that they accomplished throughout the reading program. We give you some different ideas to use on those celebration tickets, things like taking your child to the coffee shop to discuss a book or getting a new book or going bowling or watching a movie as a family or even going out to breakfast with mom or dad. So it’s more than rewarding your kids for reading, but instead, it’s taking the time to celebrate their reading accomplishments for this summer. So you can find all of that at pambarnhill.com/summer-reading or by visiting the show notes for this episode of the podcast and we’ll link you to the summer reading program there. It’s absolutely free, and we hope you come enjoy it. And now, on with the podcast.

Pam:
Mary Wilson is a writer, speaker and mother to four kids ranging from elementary to high school. She believes that creativity, laughter and fun are the backbone of an engaging and inspiring homeschool. On her blog, maryhannawilson.com, Mary encourages families to embrace the freedom that comes with homeschooling, and has been sharing resources, tips and ideas online since 2015. She is also part of the Kindred Collective Online Conference team which provides a place of welcome and support for every mom and an easy to access online format. Most recently, Mary launched a brand new website called celebrateabook.com to encourage and support parents as they celebrate literature in little in big ways with their children and friends. She lives in North Carolina with her husband and four kids. She’s an Enneagram 7, an extrovert and she enjoys traveling, tea, iced or hot, good conversations and books. Mary, welcome to the program.

Mary:
Thank you Pam, it’s so exciting to be here.

Pam:
I am so excited to have you here. You are one of my very favorite people.

Mary:
I feel the same way.

Pam:
Yay, it’s fun to have you on. So Mary and I have been online friends for a while, we were just talking about the fact that we have not got to meet in person yet.

Mary:
No, but it’s going to happen.

Pam:
Yes. Yes, definitely going to happen before too much longer. It was supposed to happen this year, but we’re just not talking about that.

Mary:
So many things were supposed to happen, but we’re not talking about that.

Pam:
Yeah, we’re just not even going there. We’re going to talk about good happy things today. So speaking of good, happy things. Start off by telling me a little bit about your family and your homeschool.

Mary:
All right. My husband and I live in Raleigh, North Carolina. We’ve been here for a few years now. It’s a delightful place to homeschool and we have four children. My oldest, I have two girls that are 17 and 15 and then I have two boys who are 13 and 10. And with my oldest this year doing a little dual enrollment in college this is a year that I have technically, kids ranging from college to elementary school.

Pam:
Wow.

Mary:
Yeah, it’s been interesting, and it’s our last year with an elementary schooler. Just a little weird too.

Pam:
So you’re entering into this transitional phase in your homeschool where you’re going into territory that you just haven’t ever been in before?

Mary:
Yeah, my oldest, poor thing. She’s always teaching me new things.

Pam:
Yeah, I have one of those guinea pigs myself.

Mary:
Yeah, I guess we all do.

Pam:
Okay, so have you guys homeschooled from the very beginning?

Mary:
We have. The only child of mine who has any experience schooling is my second child who was there for seven or eight days at the start of this year but decided that homeschool was the better place for her.

Pam:
Oh good.

Mary:
That’s it. We have an eight day school experience.

Pam:
We don’t even have that so there you go. Well, one of the things I love about you, I get lost on your blog sometimes and you’re probably chuckling behind the scenes because you see Pam Barnhill downloaded this, Pam Barnhill downloaded that, but I get lost over there with all the fun little things that you have. You’re very passionate about making learning fun and using creativity in your homeschool. So talk to me about why you think that’s so important.

Mary:
Well, I guess first, for the obvious reason, that it’s just fun and who doesn’t want to have a little fun? So to me, in this homeschooling journey with my family, I figured if we weren’t having some fun, if we weren’t enjoying it, then it was going to be a rough ride. So even though every moment can’t be fun, I mean, let’s not kid about that, every moment every single day is not fun and games, but I did start to find that those fun moments, the ones that I sometimes had to be very purposeful about planning, are what carried us through the mundane, everyday activities when maybe things weren’t quite so fun.

Pam:
Okay, can I stop you for a second? Because it’s interesting to me that you said that because I would have thought that Mary Wilson was spontaneous fun all the time.

Mary:
Well, I am that too. But sometimes you have to be planned.

Pam:
So you’re telling me you actually do go out of your way to plan fun that it’s not all…?

Mary:
Oh yes.

Pam:
Okay.

Mary:
I’m a little bit of a closet type A to be quite honest. I don’t think people think it about me because when you see things online in social media, you’re seeing the fun that’s happening. But what a lot of people don’t see is behind that, what happens ahead of time for me to organize all of that. I mean, not everything, not a trip to Dunkin’ Donuts, but adventures and field trips and book clubs and things like that. A lot of times, that fun has to be thought out a little bit as part of my planning.

Pam:
Okay, because I’m a person who does not naturally tend to fun and it’s not that I don’t enjoy fun. I like fun as much as the next person. But…sometimes my daughter, my oldest, she’ll ask me like, “Mom, what’s your spirit animal?” And I’m like, “I’m pretty sure it’s a sloth.” That’s just me. I’m just not very outgoing and vivacious, but I think I sometimes have this false idea in my mind that if you’re a fun person, you’re just spontaneously fun all the time and you don’t even have to think about it or work at it or anything like that, it just happens.

Mary:
No, and it’s interesting you bring that up. You were talking about this transition time that I’m in. When my kids were all little and we were doing everything together, I think it was a lot easier to be spontaneously fun because it was just me and four little ones who just went around with me all the time and now, I think I’m almost forced to be even more so because I’m balancing so many schedules. So if we want to do something fun in our day, I want to make sure certain people are here and that we’re not going to get interrupted by somebody’s online class or something else going on. So it has taken a little more of a planning turn in the last few years for sure.

Pam:
Okay, so yeah, this is interesting. This gives me hope like it’s completely okay.

Mary:
You can do it.

Pam:
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So this brings me to the other question that came out of this little conversation. I told you we were going to go off in all kinds of different directions today. So you do have a kid now who is dual-enrolling, so you have been working on a transcript for a number of years already and then you have another one who is following close behind those footsteps. So do you ever feel guilty like you should… How do you balance this? “Oh my gosh, I have a kid who has to have these credits, these credits, these credits” with, “We need to do something fun.” Do you ever feel frustrated? Guilty?

Mary:
Yes. I feel all the things that we all feel. There was a lot of transition time that really started around her seventh and eighth grade year and has continued and there are so many different things I’ve had to try. One was recognizing, and this was very sad on my mama’s heart, but recognizing she was having a lot of her own fun, and I could support her in that, but she wasn’t always part of our fun anymore. And it doesn’t mean she’s never part of our fun, but what was fun for her were these mentorship opportunities she was taking on and jobs and meeting friends at Starbucks and things like that. So it was hard, but I guess it was good practice to start letting them define their own fun a little bit within our homeschool because she does have credits to accomplish. So there are times that I’m really excited to watch a musical, “Oh, we’re going to watch Phantom of the Opera.” And she’s like, “Yeah, but I have Spanish homework to do and I have …”

So there was this tug of how are we going to make this work to still have family fun. But also, I was constantly feeling guilty on the flip side that my little one was not having all the fun everyone else had because now, I was constantly waiting for everyone else’s schedules to work. And I had to finally say, “Okay, I’m going to also be allowed to have separate fun, good memories, interesting opportunities with my younger ones that my older ones just might not be able to come to with me,” which was hard.

Pam:
Yeah, and I think we could do a whole podcast about that.

Mary:
Oh we could. That’s a whole other topic.

Pam:
Yeah. Yeah. Because I think there are a lot of mamas who are struggling with that one out there. So okay, well, one of the ways that Mary has fun in her homeschool, and the reason we’re chatting today is this whole idea of celebrating books with kid book clubs. I know this is a podcast about Morning Time, and we promised we’re going to make it relevant. But we’re also going to spend a little time today talking about the “all out” idea of celebrating books with kids book clubs. So tell me a little bit about where this idea came from.

Mary:
Okay. So this again started at that transition time. My daughter was … My oldest was in seventh grade and of course, we’re a homeschool family so we love books. It’s a key part of our homeschooling, read alouds, independent readings we’re always in the books, and she was getting to the point where I wanted to dig in deeper. I wanted to do a little more with it, but I just couldn’t picture her and I sitting there…she was ready to read books that the other kids weren’t reading and so I started thinking, “Well, we’ll do a book club. We’ll just invite some other friends over and maybe we could all meet at Starbucks and discuss a book.” And that was actually the original idea that we would just invite five or six of her friends, go to a coffee shop, and discuss literature every month so that she wasn’t just sitting at home talking with me. But of course, it evolved.

Pam:
Took on a life of its own.

Mary:
Yes. So when I mentioned it to two or three friends and they were like, “Absolutely, let’s do this.” So we picked some book titles, and the first one was one of The Hunger Games series books, it was Catching Fire and the stars just aligned and it was October, and I was actually going to dress up as Effie Trinket for Halloween because Hunger Games which was very popular that year and that’s a character I’ve always loved. And I don’t always dress up for Halloween, but she just seemed like that would be really fun and my friend who was hosting the first book club called me and said, “What do you think if I make some themed food?” I was going to make a cornucopia filled with bread from Pita’s Bakery and some other things and suddenly, the snowball started down the hill and I said, “Well, I was dressing up as Effie Trinket for Halloween. What if I came to the book club as Effie Trinket?” Well, that was it. I mean, as soon as I said that, the ideas started flowing.

We decided to just go all out, all the ideas we could think of and so we did. I showed up at this book club dressed in my blonde wig, full Effie Trinket costume, and the girls had a blast. They had little…like the parachutes that dropped the medicine down into the arena, waiting for them with a white balloon and cornucopia food, and I got this idea to bring a big glass bowl. And after they took their snacks. For everything they took, they had to write their name on a strip of paper as their tessera. I think it’s called in a book, and they had to put it in a bowl. And so when we were discussing, I would pull out the name of a tribute to have to answer the question so we had a blast. And at that point, this idea of a book club celebration was born because we had so much fun that we were like, “We should do this.” The girls loved it.

Pam:
Okay, so first of all, I have a 14 year old girl in my house right now who would think this is the best thing ever. So there you go. And secondly, if you would like to see pictures of this particular event and read more about all of the things that they did there, we’ll put a link to that. There is actually a blog post on Mary’s blog where you can go and read about it.

Mary:
Yes.

Pam:
Okay, so you start these book celebrations with this Hunger Game celebration which apparently was a really big hit and then did you start doing other books?

Mary:
We did. I want to say that every month was not over the top. I mean, when you go to my blog, of course, you’re going to see the pictures of the ones that we really got into. There were moms who were not as comfortable with these ideas and so there are book clubs where we just had a really great snack and discussed the book and it was still a blast, but some of our most memorable events were the ones like The Green Ember is another one and that one was really fun because I had two book clubs that month. My boys were in a book club for The Green Ember and my second daughter was in a book club for The Green Ember that month, and it was interesting the different directions we took with those book clubs because the boys was all about battling, rabbits with swords. We had a Morgan Blackbird piñata that we attacked with our swords and we made badges with different symbols from the book. So it was all about battling and the girls, it was all about the mended wood. And we made stained glass images and everything was very beautiful and peaceful and it was just fun to see one book come alive in two very different ways.

Pam:
Yeah, I could totally see that. Okay, so the first thing I’m hearing you say is it is great fun to do these over the top celebrations, but it’s also just as meaningful to have a snack and a conversation. So Mamas, as you’re sitting out there listening to this and you’re feeling like, “Oh, this sounds like so much fun. I want to try one of these.” You don’t have to try one of these every single month to have a really good book club.

Mary:
No. Yeah, definitely. I mean, you could kick off with it, or once a quarter, maybe one in December, that kind of thing. Yeah, it’s definitely not something you have to do every time for it to be just as much fun.

Pam:
Okay. So why do you think this is a great way for kids to talk about books?

Mary:
Book Club in general?

Pam:
Yeah, just book club in general and even some of the … Even the idea of…well, let’s talk about this for just a second. You and I had had a conversation a couple months ago as we were discussing having you on the podcast as a guest. And we were talking about different books that you might do these kinds of celebrations for and you were very quick to tell me, “These are not book parties. These are book celebrations.” So tell me about what’s the difference and tell me about some of the tougher books that you’ve done these for.

Mary:
Yeah, a party I guess stirs up certain kinds of images and you think, “Oh, well, you could never have a party for The Scarlet Letter.” And that wasn’t true. We did have a book club celebration for The Scarlet Letter because what we’re doing is we’re celebrating the literature. So it might be that we’re drawing out certain themes, certain historical figures. We have done where we’re recognizing and celebrating their life and their contribution to society. So there’s so many different ways you can celebrate the literature in front of you that doesn’t always necessarily feel like the word party fits because sometimes there’s tough literature we read. That doesn’t mean we can’t celebrate it in some memorable way if we want to.

Pam:
Can you give me an example?

Mary:
Well, The Scarlet Letter was one that we did. Let me see if I can think of …

Pam:
Well, how did you celebrate that book without it being a party?

Mary:
Well, it just didn’t feel like the type of book…we didn’t do costumes for that one and all that kind of stuff. We just had a very red theme for it, and got together to really appreciate the time period. So that one I guess you just didn’t see as much decoration and as much costume which I think is something that people think of when they’ve read some of my blog posts. That one was just much more of a gathering around this…I’m trying to remember, it was a year and a half ago…this female character, and talking about the importance of that as women and in that literature. So it was a lot more of the discussion than it was just necessarily lots of frivolity I guess.

Pam:
Okay. So back to my original question then: What do you think the book club atmosphere, this idea of getting together with friends and celebrating books and talking about books with your peers and not just your siblings or your mom, why do you think that’s a good way for kids to talk about books?

Mary:
Yeah. That was something that was one of my main motivations is…I just felt like having more of a variety of opinions included in the discussion would really help lay the foundation for literary analysis which sounds so big and scary, but really isn’t. It’s just talking about what an author is doing in a book to create certain effects for the reader and having a book club gave us a space where it was a little more comfortable, it was a fun atmosphere, but we really were laying the foundation for solid literary analysis when it was required in a more formal setting in high school and college and really laying a foundation where discussing books is part of life. I’m really hoping, I talk to my kids a lot about, “One day, you can look at the adult library book club list and join a book club there or form one with your friends.” I’ve actually heard my oldest daughter mention that before that she’s going to get together with some friends to talk about this book they read and I thought, “Yeah, because we’re laying that foundation that this is part of life, discussing great stories and what they mean to us and to the people around us.”

Pam:
Yeah. I love that so much and you’re laying a foundation for the continuation of reading. I think by making it a social thing and people get together and watch movies, why in the world shouldn’t people get together and read books?

Mary:
Yes.

Pam:
Yeah, so just the idea that we’re going to continue to do this after the time, when it’s all about … When reading is all about, “Well, I’m going to read this for a class and then I’m going to sit down and answer these questions and take a test on it and be done with it. Well, most of us are not taking classes after we leave school.” So then it’s like, “If that was the only thing reading was for, we’re not going to continue.” But if reading is about reading something and then getting together with a group of friends to discuss it, we can do that throughout our entire lives.

Mary:
And they see me participate in book clubs. So I just think exactly what you’re saying. Reading isn’t just a class we’re taking in school.

Pam:
Right. Right. So how do you get everyone who is attending involved with the discussion? Do you ever have problems with that? Have you struggled?

Mary:
Yeah. Teenagers are teenagers everywhere and you’ll have certain ones … I mean, elementary schoolers tend to be a little easier. I’m making generalizations here, but they haven’t hit that awkward, “What if I say the wrong thing?” And so with teenagers, I think it’s really important from the get go to start with an atmosphere of…you’ll have to continually emphasize with them, “There are no right or wrong answers here. We’re having a discussion. So you’re welcome to an opinion. We might ask you, What made you think of that? or, Where was that in the book? But there’s not a right or wrong answer.”

I also started to get much better at asking good follow up questions to get the kids thinking beyond that initial, “I like that. I didn’t like that.” Good discussion questions will help with that, discussion questions that probe a little deeper than just a surface answer. For different book clubs, we would come up with maybe different ways that I would “call on” a person or the discussion leader would. Like, The Hunger Games pulling a name out of the tribute. It made it kind of fun. There’s one guide that is The Crossover, it’s a basketball theme, so, having a basketball and passing the basketball.

We also did that…The Lord of the Flies. We had a conch shell. So just like in the book where you had to be holding a conch shell to talk, we brought this symbol from the book that also became a great symbol of discussion like, “Could you pass the conch shell to the person across from you? And they’re gonna answer this next question.” And, just trying to make that safe environment and sometimes, yeah, you had to call on someone and draw them out a little bit.

Pam:
Oh, I love that idea of pulling something from the book because it just, it makes it so much more memorable and really brings the story to life for the kids.

Mary:
Yeah.

Pam:
Okay, so let’s talk a little bit about your book club guides. I want to start with that and then I want to talk about how moms can use the guides. Maybe we have some listeners who are interested in starting a book club. And then also, how can we take those guides and adapt them to a Morning Time setting if we don’t want to start a book club? So tell me a little bit about the Celebrate a Book guides and what they’re going to include and how they’re going to help moms.

Mary:
Okay. Well, one of the challenges of course when we decided to do book clubs and celebrate literature with themed events to decoration and food and games was coming up with the ideas. And I did learn that that is something that comes to me naturally. I can read a book and as I’m reading, ideas are literally just coming into my head, like, that would be perfect. And it might be from having done this. I mean, my oldest is about to be a senior and we started this in her seventh grade year. So I realized for a lot of parents, the challenge was coming up with the creative idea to draw out the book. A lot of people were willing to do it, they would love to do it, but weren’t quite sure how to do it with some of their books.

So, my goal behind the guides was to give parents all of the ideas and there are a lot of ideas in each guide. There are too many ideas, which I say in the guide. There’s decoration ideas, there’s food and snack ideas. There’s game and craft ideas in there as well as different activities that you can do. And by throwing a lot of ideas into the guide, it’s my hope, not that parents would look at it and think, “I can’t do all this,” but that they would look at it and see so many options that they know they can find one, two or three that will work for their situation. So it’s not about doing them all. It’s about looking through and picking the ones that will work for your particular group of kids or your Morning Time or wherever you’re implementing a celebration with a book with your kids.

Pam:
Yeah. And I think that’s one of the things, you mentioned earlier about The Green Ember is that you had the group of boys and for them, it was all about the rabbits with swords and the battles and for the girls, it was more crafty and quiet and things like that. And so going through, Mary actually sent me a copy of her Green Ember Celebrate a Book guide and it’s all in there, but the idea is you’re not going to do all of it, you’re just going to choose the ones that are going to work best for your particular kids. I mean, I have one who unequivocally does not like to craft at all. So I would never choose a craft for that particular kid because I know him and I know that that’s how he is.

Mary:
Right. Yeah. Yeah. And I also included in the guides…while you can find discussions from a variety of sources, from websites, scholastic books, your curriculum, I wanted parents to have everything they needed in one place. So in every guide are 10 discussion questions that I wrote after reading the book that I thought would create good discussion for groups to have. And I didn’t put 10 in there because I think that you’re going to get to 10 every time. There were book clubs, especially when my kids are younger that we maybe got to five great questions, and it felt really good and we just ended it there. And there were other times where the discussion veered off course and we ended up discussing all sorts of things for a much longer time. But I put in 10 because it felt like a good amount that you could pull from and find questions that you thought would engage your kids.

Pam:
Yeah, so I think, like the activities, different questions are going to engage different children and so you have a good selection to choose from. And what I love about these questions, and I wanted to bring this up because you were talking about earlier how you had learned over the years how to ask the questions that kept the kids talking and I’m like, “Okay, nobody wants to have to take five years to learn how to do this.” My kids are going to be gone. So, Mary’s done it for us.

Mary:
Right.

Pam:
She has the skill. And they really are these open ended questions that allow for deeper discussion than you might think about just standing there in the moment trying to come up with a question.

Mary:
I’m glad to hear that because that was my goal.

Pam:
Yeah. Yeah. Okay, so we have the Celebrate a Book guides. Tell me a little bit about the titles you have coming out.

Mary:
Okay. So, The Green Ember we have discussed. Another one I mentioned is The Crossover. This is a great book. It’s in free verse poetry and it’s about basketball about twin brothers, such a fun title. Wednesday Wars is another one by Gary Schmidt. It’s an excellent book about a middle school boy and of course, you know I had to write The Hunger Games since it was my first book club. I wanted to put that out there for everyone as well.

Pam:
And you know there’s a new Hunger Games book coming out.

Mary:
Right. I know great timing!

Pam:
Yeah, by the time this airs, I think I got an update … Yeah, I got an update from Amazon today that it was shipping like somewhere in the week of the 21st, 22nd somewhere around in there.

Mary:
It’s almost like Suzanne Collins knew. And she timed it for me.

Pam:
That Mary Wilson is going to be releasing a Celebrate a Book guide and so we’re going to have this book come out at the same time.

Mary:
That’s right. And right now working on The Hobbit so that will be another one.

Pam:
Cannot wait for that one and we’re going to have a Hunger Games party as well, but yeah, I think that one’s going to be …

Mary:
I’d like see you dressed up as Effie there Pam.

Pam:
I am not going to get to be Effie at my house. Olivia is going to get to be Effie.

Mary:
Oh I love that.

Pam:
Yeah, it will not be me and so I’ll have to … I really do have more of the personality of Katniss except, I always tell people that if the zombie apocalypse happened, I would just have to sacrifice myself for my children because I would not last long anyway. So I don’t know who I’m going to be.

Mary:
Not going into the arena, right?

Pam:
No. I’m going to have to figure it out, but yeah, we’ll just see who I ended up being. Okay, back to the topic here. We’re getting way off topic, but it’s so much fun. I mean, that’s what’s great about this kind of stuff is thinking about what can we do with this and making such wonderful memories for our kids. So I want to start a book club. What kind of steps should I take to do this?

Mary:
That is a great question.

Pam:
Yeah, how can I choose books? How do I get some people?

Mary:
And I will mention, I actually, this is all fresh in my mind because I just wrote a guide that will be available that literally walks through all the steps, that holds your hand through it. But what I do encourage parents to start with is a vision for book club because that’s really going to affect things. One of my goals was friends for my seventh grade daughter. So for me, I wanted to invite girls her age to the book club. This wasn’t a ‘family’s, bring all the ages together’ which I think would be brilliant and I’ve seen people do that. But you need to know your goals. So who are you looking to include? A few multi-age kids to all come together? Are you looking for specifically friends for a certain age in your house? That kind of thing. And, have an idea. Is this going to meet once a month? That kind of stuff, so that you can start extending some invitations. And I would tell parents who maybe are feeling a little intimidated by it, just start with one or two other friends. It doesn’t have to be a group of 10 immediately.

Just like mine did, it can slowly grow along the way and once you have an idea of what you want to do, and who might be involved. I started with two friends and planned it with them and then we extended the invitation out to others. So we had already picked the titles, but when you’re looking for books, again, oh my gosh, we’re homeschoolers, we know that there’s just too much literature than you could ever read in your lifetime, but we used what was dictated by our curriculum. That actually worked pretty simply for us that we for the most part were picking books that went with our curriculum that year.

Occasionally, we veered off for something fun like The Hunger Games or something to really kick off with a great party at the start of the year, but I’ve had friends who they picked like two titles for each month, and they let the kids vote. So the parents were having a little control, but the kids also felt like they had a little control. So if you want to read science fiction, put out there two different science fiction books and let them vote on which one they want to read. And they did that at the kickoff meeting. So there’s lots of places that parents can find book title ideas, ask your librarian. I mean, there’s lots of great options out there to be able to pick your titles and then you’re going to decide with your friends, How often do you want to meet? Where do you want to meet?

We rotated houses, but I also included, don’t forget about alternative locations. There were times we met on a picnic blanket outside of a museum and then we actually toured a museum that the display fit what we read about in the book. One time, just being honest, all the moms were tired, nobody really felt like planning, and we met at Starbucks over Frappuccinos and the girls loved it. So I think having that nice variety also helps, but having an idea at the beginning of mapping out at least who’s in charge of each month, then they can be thinking about their location as their month gets closer.

Pam:
Okay, so what I’m hearing you say and what I want to really emphasize for people is a party, a celebration that’s more like a party a couple of times a year is fun or even once a quarter is fun or God love you if you want to do it once a month, do it. But it does not have to be that way every single month and so you’re probably not going to be able to maintain that amount of intensity and excitement every single month. So those off months where you’re just meeting at a coffee shop or even meeting at someone’s house and having dinner or having dessert or whatever it is you want to do and just discussing the book, that is more than enough. And so when we’re talking about doing a book club, we’re not talking about maintaining the same level of celebration all the time.

Mary:
Absolutely. You’ll find your own rhythm as you’re going.

Pam:
Yeah, and I think that’s a great idea. All right, so what about the mom who’s like, “I kind of love these ideas, but I got a toddler here or I have a bunch of kids and they go across the wide range of ages or … We’re not getting out and doing book club. We kind of need to stay a little more insulated, but I like the idea of doing some of this stuff in my Morning Time.” So what suggestions do you have for the mom who wants to do this with her kids, but worries it’s too much to take on and she wants to keep it closer to home?

Mary:
Yeah, I think that is actually an excellent idea and Morning Time is a wonderful place to do it because for a lot of us, that’s when we’re reading a good read aloud book. We’re diving into literature with our kids in Morning Time. So for me, we’ve actually done this in our Morning Time. We did this with Wednesday Wars. I like to pull a little idea, maybe once a week that celebrates the book in our Morning Time just as a family.

Mary:
So for example, in Wednesday Wars, Holling Hoodhood is his name, he has to dust the chalk, you know the old erasers where you have to bang out the chalk? He had to bang out the chalk erasers and he was doing it outside and the chalk dust went up and in the window of the classroom and it sprinkled on top of all these cream puffs that were laying there fresh out of the oven. So of course, when they deliver them to the group that’s going to eat the cream puffs, they’re chalky and they’re nasty. So the night before, I went out to the bakery at the grocery store, and I got some cream puffs and I put a little sprinkled sugar on them and the next day during Morning Time we enjoyed cream puffs with powdered sugar on them, “chalk dust” as we were reading our book and it was simple. Oh, and I put on the little tin from the grocery store, I put Goldman’s Bakery instead. I just put a little sign on it. That was the bakery in the book. So it was just a simple way to celebrate the book we were reading in the morning, have a fun time together, but it didn’t have to be something huge and involved.

Pam:
Okay, so when you first started telling this story, which I think is a fabulous story and a wonderful thing to do, you were like, “And the night before …” I’m like, “Oh my gosh, she’s going to tell me she made cream puffs.”

Mary:
Oh no.

Pam:
I love that it was, “I went out to the grocery store.”

Mary:
One thing I don’t do is bake.

Pam:
And I’m sure there are some people out there who bake cream puffs and do a great job.

Mary:
Oh absolutely. And I would like to invite them to my book club.

Pam:
Yes.

Mary:
I’ll plan it if they will bake the cream puffs.

Pam:
I mean, seriously, that’s all it takes is to go out and buy … It’s okay to buy the already made cream puffs.

Mary:
And honestly, that’s what gave me the idea for the guides. The hard part, I mean, we have so many things going on and if you’ve got a toddler and a baby, there’s not always the brain space to think ahead. “Oh, I should get cream puffs. That would be really fun.” But if you have a guide that has all the ideas in it for you for the month, all you have to do is look through and be like, “Oh, I could handle these three.”

Pam:
This is one I could do.

Mary:
Yeah. And then do one a week during your Morning Time.

Pam:
Yeah. Yeah, my brain is whirling here. I could see having book club Fridays in Morning Time where you’re going to do one of the activities from the guides. I’m all about getting the guides and not making it up on my own. That’s just too much work, so thank you Mary…and serving one of the food items.

Mary:
Yes.

Pam:
There are so many food items. I’m looking at The Green Ember guide right here and “Green Ember Jello” or “Cloud Mountain Marshmallows.” I mean, my kids would be all over that and we could snack on that while we discuss one of the questions that’s in here and they would just absolutely love it and it would be so easy for us to do.

Mary:
Yes. And since we’re looking in the guide, something else, if you wanted to avoid the food thing, maybe that doesn’t work for your family for lots of different reasons. There was an idea in there also about playing battle music. So maybe when you’re kicking off the book, playing some music in your Morning Time and talking about that and what kind of book might this be as we’re hearing the music. So it can be lots of different things. It’s whatever works for your Morning Time and your kids.

Pam:
Right. Right. If you don’t want to bring the food in, then doing something else to set that atmosphere. So yeah, I love it. I love it. Okay. So, if I want to do a book club, as I’m thinking about the books that are in my curriculum this year that I might want to do a book club with, if Mary doesn’t have a guide for them, what are the basics that I need to come up with?

Mary:
Oh, that’s a great question. One of the things I’ve learned by doing this for several years is as you’re reading the book, sometimes it’ll be obvious, there will be food in the book that that’s a really quick, easy one if they’re eating anything in the book. Thinking about the setting, if there’s any way you can recreate the setting, even with something as simple as “Welcome to…” and then the name of the town or wherever the book is taking place. Another thing to pay attention to draw out some ideas and I’ll use The Green Ember as an example, even though there is a guide for that one, is the characters in the book. So when I’m thinking of ideas, not only the plot, but also thinking, “Okay, these are rabbits.” So maybe we could come up with rabbit food or something to do with rabbits. It doesn’t have to necessarily be a plot thing. I’m trying to think, “You could bring down some stuffed rabbits and sit them at the table.” Things like that, where you’re also drawing out the characters in the story that you could use something that they’re doing or the type of character. I know in Poppy, the book Poppy by Avi?

Pam:
Yes.

Mary:
Yeah, oh my gosh, we loved Poppy. We had, there’s a…is it hedgehog, Ereth. Is he the hedgehog?

Pam:
Oh, it’s been so long since we’re read it I don’t remember.

Mary:
I know and I apologize if I’m wrong, but I believe it’s Ereth. We took a pear and we put toothpicks in it with grapes to make a hedgehog. So thinking about if there’s animals in the book you could do something with or simple things like that. So there’s lots of different directions you can take it as you’re reading a book. But it does help if you go into the book with that mindset and you’re reading and looking for something. You’d be surprised how it will start to come to you.

Pam:
So going beyond the plot and looking at setting and characters, those are going to be other places to get ideas. And then what about coming up with your own questions?

Mary:
That’s just something that takes practice.

Pam:
Okay.

Mary:
Now, if you don’t want to write them yourself, like I said, if you go into Google and you typed the name of your book and then write the words discussion questions, you’ll find sources like scholastic books and lots of other places have great questions. I would just look at them and look for ones that again, are open-ended that don’t feel to a kid like they have a right answer.

Pam:
Okay, yeah, yeah. So we’re not talking here about, “When they went over the mountain, how many flowers did they bring back?” Yeah, we’re really trying to get them to dig a little deeper and discuss at some of the different things that happened in the book. So all very, very good ideas and I’d love, you were talking about bringing the rabbits, the stuffed rabbits for The Green Ember and I was thinking, there are a lot of things that like a three year old or a four year old or even a five year old maybe couldn’t do in The Green Ember guide. But then doing the things like bringing in the stuffed rabbits and listening to the music, and even taking a swipe at the piñata, those little kids, that allows them to be part of it.

Mary:
Yes.

Pam:
So if you’re doing something like…they’re not necessarily going to remember it on down the road, but if you’re doing something like this in your family Morning Time, one simple activity a week, for the four or five weeks that it takes you to read this book, those little kids are going to be able to be part of that. There are ways for them to be part of it as well.

Mary:
Yes. To include the whole family because we’re homeschoolers.

Pam:
And that’s what we do and that’s what Morning Time is about is bringing the whole family together.

Mary:
That’s what we do, that’s right. That’s right.

Pam:
Yeah, love it. Okay, Mary, tell us where we can find these wonderful book club guides so we can all get started planning our book clubs.

Mary:
Great. So the website is celebrateabook.com and if you head over there, you’re going to find the guides, book club planners if you need them and actually, we were just talking about where do you get questions because I know that’s an issue. One of the things available is also a one page with about 15 questions you can ask of any book that go through setting character, the writing, that kind of thing. That way you can have that and if there’s a book you’re doing that you don’t have a curriculum guide for or there isn’t a Celebrate a Book guide for yet, you can just pull that list of any questions and use them for any book. So you’ll find that over at celebrateabook.com also.

Pam:
Awesome, awesome. And do you have a resource for us that we could get? You mentioned the Getting Started Guide.

Mary:
Yes. I have a book club planner. I’m finishing it up so I’m not 100% sure of everything that will be in it. So it’s going to be a surprise to all of us, but it will walk you through the process of how to plan a book club and then have some planning sheets in there to help you lay out your year.

Pam:
Awesome, awesome. So such a great resource whether you’re doing that book club, I love the fact about talking about the goals so whether you’re doing that book club so your kid can get out and meet other kids their age and discuss and socialize. Or you’re using this for your entire family in your Morning Time. Both ways work. So, so many good ideas here Mary. Thank you so much for coming and joining us today.

Mary:
Oh, I enjoyed this so much. Thank you for having me.

Pam:
And there you have it. Now, if you would like resources for this episode of the podcast, the downloads including the full transcripts, action items for you, links to any of the books or resources that Mary and I chatted about on today’s episode, you can find them on the show notes and those are at pambarnhill.com/ymb74. Now, this episode is our very last episode of our Spring season heading out from now, we’re going to take a little hiatus through the month of June, but never fear, we will be back. We will be back again on July 14th with a wonderful interview with the lovely Rea Berg from Beautiful Feet Books. Rea and I are going to be chatting about studying history using literature and it was a really fun conversation that you are not going to want to miss.

In the meantime the Your Morning Basket Podcast team is going to be taking a much needed break to spend a little extra time with our family this summer and hey, we have a special shout out to our podcast engineer, one Mr. E. Vencel who is graduating from high school this year. So congratulations, Mr. Vencel, we appreciate all the hard work you do for us on the podcast. We’ll be back again in July. Until then, keep seeking Truth, Goodness and Beauty in your homeschool day.