Host a Literary Party: Start a Book Club with Friends and Family

What is a Literary Party? A LP is one that involves the written and/or spoken word. It is a gathering of friends to enjoy each other and share texts with one another. It is to be awe and fall in love with words!

One Literary Party that you can throw with your friends and family is a Book Club Party. You can get together with families and friends who have

kids who enjoy to read similar books. Choose a book, read it with your kids and then meet at some one's house. Bring a collection of snacks, pick parts of the book to read aloud and choose some ideas to share with friends.

A nice mixture of kids and adults helps everyone see the beauty and power of books. Maybe the discussion lasts 30 minutes, maybe only 10minutes. Then celebrate the read by eating and mingling.

For babies, you may decide to each bring a board book to the party! You can spend the time reading all the different books with your babies! Let them roam and crawl and explore different favorite books! This could be a way for everyone to share the wide variety of texts that are out there.

Invite your friends and their families! Snack, read, talk and enjoy!

Have You Picked Up a Magazine Recently?

When I travel, I like to load up my 'carry on' with a few magazines! I also subscribe (online now) to magazines and blogs. I enjoy reading short essays, stories, and even doing a puzzle now and then. My sister and Nana are big puzzle people as well. I remember growing up with many magazines coming to the house that I loved to browse and skim and read.

My nephew is growing up to be quite the traveler. He is almost three and has been to 3 continents and 7 countries including: Poland, Oman, and England. As he travels, he brings his "penguin roll-ley backpack" that my sister has filled with his slippers, a snack, a couple books etc. I suggested getting him a couple of magazines at the airport to read and let him look through- it's lighter!

Well this year, in honor of the new year, Nana and Papa got my nephew a year's subscription to National Geographic. What a great idea! It really is a gift that keeps giving! National Geographic, like National Wildlife Federation, has a couple of different magazine subscriptions- depending on the age of the child. Imagine, you could get a subscription for the toddler, the 4th grader, and for yourselves! That sounds like a family reading together! You could do the same with Sports Illustrated For Kids. I remember that my high school English teacher always said that the best writing is in SI!

Ask and Muse are both examples of companies with multi- leveled texts. Both content rich (science and social studies) oriented! These would be a nice companion to your Smithsonian subscription. Even online websites, like Time For Kids, have content and texts that are designed for different ages of kids!

These are heavy on the genre of non-fiction informational texts. In many of them though there are poems and cartoons, and some stories that highlight the theme of the magazine. Of course there are literary magazines as well that do the same thing!

Magazines online, delivered to your home, picked up at a newsstand or an airport, make a wonderful addition to the library at home!

Reading Alongside Our Kids

I have been in many book clubs. Book clubs have always been a place for me to discover new authors and content, bond with friends, and push me as a reader. One afternoon as AB and I were browsing in a book shop we came across Wicked. AB said to me, "Oh, I really want to see that Broadway Show!" I told her that I did as well! I suggested to AB that we get two copies of it- one for her and one for me- and that we should read it, talk about it and then go see the show together. She was game! And so began our book club.

When M and A invited me to the beach last spring, I had to bring something. I didn't want to show up empty handed. For the the adults I brought wine. For the kids I brought books for us to read and share together. I brought the picture book- Listen to The Wind for M. Listen to the Wind is the story of how Greg Mortensen was rescued in the mountains of Pakistan and nursed to health. He returned to the village that saved him, to help build a school! M is the kind of person who loves books about saving the world and helping others. For her birthday this year she asked everyone to bring food rather than presents. She was then able to take all the food her friends and family collected to her local food bank. So, I knew that this book choice would grab her attention. I had read Three Cups of Tea first. How wonderful that there is a version for younger kids to read and talk about a topic and issue in the world together!

I did the same with Wangri Maathai. When she won the Peace Prize I decided I wanted to get to know her better as well as her lifelong work in Kenya. I read Through The Greenbelt Movement and Unbowed: A memoir. Planting the Trees of Kenya and Wangari's Trees of Peace are two beautiful books published for kids. What a great dialog that this can create about reading and the world!

For my god son's 8th birthday I gave him: From Akira to Zoltan. I wanted to introduce him to the world of biographies and people who have made a difference in the world! What a great way to continue building the idea of strong male role models! This set off an inquiry about people and history! He continued to look for other biographies- He got inspired to read a couple of biographies about Gandhi and Barack Obama! I followed along! I found for myself The Essential Guide to Gandhi. I also had read Obama's first autobiography Dreams From My Father, but still needed to read, The Audacity of Hope. So the two of us read biographies- side by side!

Create a book club with the kids in your life and find ways to connect your reading life to theirs! You will find that not only will you peak their interest in a topic- but they will inspire you to read more deeply as well!