Next week, the PDPPPosse Book Club is inviting Glenlyon Norfolk House middle school to join us and share their favourite books (or the book on their nightstand) with us.  To add focus to this discussion, the kids will talk to us about the following:

• Name of the book and author
• Genre
• Why did you pick it up to read?
• A brief synopsis of the book  - could be main theme (a couple of sentences)
• Would you recommend it?
• What will you read next?

I will share this loose structure with GHMS also (who we have already heard from), and we will have a follow up meeting with these questions in place.  I think this will focus our discussion and also alleviate some anxiety on the part of the students.  They will know what to expect and be able to prepare answers in advance of the meeting.  

In a subsequent meeting, we might go deeper.  I'm not sure how or what that would look like at this point, but I have an idea that students can discuss what has lingered with them from the book: a new idea, a feeling, a world of possibility or wonder, synthesis of a personal experience through a character or situation in a book.  This last bit might be asking a lot of middle school students but then again . . . maybe not.   I know that, as an adult, I enjoy reading but my favourite is when a book "stays with me" for a long time; when I become so lost in a story or a world that I live in it for a while.  Really great books can do this for us and I would love to hear kids sharing their experiences.