ARRT Book Club Study Notes of My Favorite Thing is Monsters, Leadership Topic Notes Easy Access Archive, and Announcing Next Discussion-- The Leavers

Earlier this month I attended the ARRT Book Club Study and we had a wonderful time.

From the ARRT Book Club Study Archive of past discussions [where you can access the notes from many different discussions and leadership topics]:

My Favorite Thing is Monsters, Vol. 1 by Emil Ferris

Discussion 

Leadership Training on discussing alternate formats (graphic novels, film, etc.) in book clubs.

Please click through and read the notes. This was an excellent discussion, both parts. We also had a lot of new people and a very good dialog both about the book and the leadership topic.

While you have to be a member to attend the discussions in person, we at ARRT are committed to helping book club leaders all over the country [even the world] have access to our discussion points, both to help you run your own discussion of this book and to have access to our leadership topic notes so that you too can get help with any issues or concerns going on with your group. It is just as important for book club leaders to have a resource to help them serve their book groups in general as it is for them to have access to sample discussions. Often, service to the leaders, their needs, concerns, and issues is not handled by any resource, and since most book discussion leaders function in a solo capacity, they can easily get overwhelmed [Trust me, I’ve been there, it’s why I created this program in the first place].

Our newly refurbished Book Club Study landing page on the ARRT website now has the past leadership topic notes arranged alphabetically for easier access here, but I have also reprinted a linked list below so you can access them immediately:

Leadership Training Topics

• Administering book groups at your library (How do you attract new people? How do you convince your supervisor to let you add more book groups? Who leads book discussions at your library? Paid staff or volunteers?
• Best practices for choosing which books your group will discuss
• Discussing “best” books (either award winners or popular book club picks) 
• Discussing genre titles 
• Discussing nonfiction titles 
• Discussing sensitive topics
• Favorite “under the radar” book discussion gems 
• Incorporating romance novels into any book club—during which Sonali Dev joined the conversation 
• Including authors in book club events—during which Christina Henríquez joined the conversation 
• Managing the group dynamic 
• Recruiting new members and retaining old ones 
• Selecting books for discussion, encouraging participation, and other topics 
• We Need Diverse Books movement and how and why we should make sure the books we are offering our groups represent diverse voices 

And finally, we are also now accepting registration for the final Book Club Study of the year. From the website:

Please join us for a discussion of The Leavers by Lisa Ko, led by Sonia Reppe. 

One morning, Deming Guo’s mother, an undocumented Chinese immigrant named Polly, goes to her job at the nail salon and never comes home. No one can find any trace of her. With his mother gone, eleven-year-old Deming is left with no one to care for him. He is eventually adopted by two white college professors who move him from the Bronx to a small town upstate. They rename him Daniel Wilkinson in their efforts to make him over into their version of an “all-American boy.” But far away from all he’s ever known, Daniel struggles to reconcile his new life with his mother’s disappearance and the memories of the family and community he left behind. Set in New York and China, The Leavers is a vivid and moving examination of borders and belonging. It’s the story of how one boy comes into his own when everything he’s loved has been taken away–and how a mother learns to live with the mistakes of her past. This powerful debut is the winner of the 2016 PEN/Bellwether Prize for fiction, awarded by Barbara Kingsolver for a novel that addresses issues of social justice. -Summary courtesy of Goodreads.

The discussion will be held: Wednesday, November 7th2-4 p.m.Stickney-Forest View Public Library District 

RSVP to Sonia Reppe (reppes@sfvpld.org) 

 Please arrange to obtain your own copy of the book for the discussion. 

As always, discussion of the book includes a nuts-and-bolts session devoted to sharing practical solutions to the problems and concerns of book discussion leaders. 

Also, remember that you can always bring any problems or concerns you have with your group, no matter the topic, so we can all help each other.

It looks like our discussion topic will be a revisit of Book Club Basics because we haven’t done that topic for a few years and we have a lot of new members who are just starting their very first book discussion groups.

But remember, even if you aren’t a member or cannot physically join us, the notes are very detailed and available for free anytime here.