Instant Book Clubs Provide Entertainment for Park Girls
July 9, 2009 • written by Samantha Hartfiel
While most students tend to abandon all subjects related to school over the summer, there is one group of Park High School students that are trying to keep their minds intact over the three month break whilst having a bit of fun. These five seniors: Emily Evans, Samantha Hartfiel, Rebecca Holland, Paige Ng, and Frannie Sprouls, have formulated a small book club with the help of the Park Grove Branch Library. They discovered at the beginning of June that the library offered Instant Book Clubs, which are bags that contain 10 copies of a novel and a list of discussion questions that are used to evoke book clubs. The Washington County Libraries offer 117 different novels for Instant Book Clubs that can be checked out by any member of the community that holds a library card. These novels, which include classics such as Of Mice and Men and popular novels such as My Sister’s Keeper, are picked by the library because they are novels that contain topics or characters that invoke intelligent discussion. Ever since their discovery, the five girls have been trying to read one novel a week.
It appears that so far, the girls are enjoying their unique hobby.
“I enjoy how a group of teenagers can gather and have an organized meeting of intelligent thought;” says Holland “I look forward to gaining a good experience and having many good times with my friends while discussing literature.”
The girls have also made book club bags which when all put together spell out the word Books. Each canvas tote features a picture of a bookworm on it, along with the titles of the novels they have read. The girls bring the bags with them to their weekly meetings and converse the books, which often lead to many intelligent conversations. With their latest novel, The Breadwinner, the girls got a chance to discuss the lifestyle of women in the Middle East in areas that have been taken over by the Taliban.
“The Breadwinner really made me want to do something to help the women” says Evans, “Since I will be president of New Global Citizens next year, maybe I’ll figure out some way to help them.”
Also, while the selection is a little limited, the girls find that it only makes the book club that much more enriching.
“The fact that we are in this group gives us an opportunity to read culturally enriching books that we wouldn’t have read otherwise,” exclaims Ng, “It also gives us an excuse to hang out with our friends and an excuse to read.”
The group, which has read The Eyre Affair and The Breadwinner thus far, is beginning their next endeavor, The Picture of Dorian Gray and is hoping to continue reading until at least the end of summer.
“I really enjoy being in this group,” states Hartfiel, “It’s a cheap way to get hours of entertainment. We still find ourselves discussing past books and making connections with today’s culture and other literary works. We have talked about how the stories and characters connect to books like Harry Potter or Great Expectations. It is definitely a worthwhile endeavor.”
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