New book clubs pair kids and parents

Fourth graders Megan Schroeder and Andrea Malcolm liked the chance this summer to team with their moms in a book club experiment.

Judy Gray is the girls' teacher at Oak Brook Elementary. She signed up 15 kid-adult pairs to take part in a new book club sponsored by Cooperating School District (CSD). The summer club featured the famous St. Louis kids' authors Pat and Fred McKissacks.

The kid and parent read the same book and then discussed it. Later, they got a chance to ask the McKissacks questions about how they write their children's books. The McKissacks talked to club members by way of two-way video conferencing.

The 85 kid-adult pairs from eight different schools in the St. Louis metro area took part in the summer experiment.

(Young Saint Louis.com last month had a complete story about the CSD book club experiment and a new writing program. To read that complete story, just click here.)

Gray liked the idea of kids and adults reading the same book so much she's offering two different clubs to her class this school year.

The first will be in the CSD program which will feature other famous kids' authors. The big book publisher, Scholastic, is providing other authors to replace the McKissacks this school year.

The McKissacks are going to conduct special writing classes for St. Louis kids this year.

Gray's other book club will feature just kids and parents reading the same book. "A lot of parents wanted to read with their kids but not do all the other stuff," Gray said.

They've already got the first book selected. It's titled "The Dark-Thirty, Southern Tales of Supernatural." That's another book by Pat McKissack.

Teacher Judy Gray also plans to feature books by the McKissacks in regular parts of their reading classes.

Her fourth grade literature segment involves reading books in a variety of genre. The categories include folklore, realistic fiction, fantasy, poetry, science fiction, informational non-fiction, geography and historical fiction.

"We're going to research to see how many different categories the McKissacks' books fit into," Gray said. The McKissacks have written over 100 kids books.

This emphasis by Gray on the McKissack books fits well with another program at the Parkway School District. Oak Brook is in that district.

Pat McKissack will be the featured speaker at next spring's Parkway Young Author Conference. Andrea will be an Oak Brook Elementary delegate next March, Gray said.

The summer book club selection was Pat McKissack's book, "Nzingha, Warrior Queen of Matamba, Angola, Africa, 1595." In addition to reading the book, the kids and parents were asked to do research on present-day Angola. One of the research questions was: Do present day Africans eat termites like they did in olden days?

Each kid was to have a question to ask the McKissacks in the last video-conference.

Megan's question was: Did Nzingha stop writing her journal after she got married? Pat McKissack wrote the book as a series of entries in a daily journal by the warrior queen.

Megan said she read the book faster than her mother, Barb Schroeder.

Andrea and Dawn Malcolm

But, Andrea said she and her mother kept pace with each other in reading the book. That way they got a chance to discuss different parts of the book as they went along.

Andrea said she likes adventures and mysteries. She's especially interested in the American Girl History Mysteries. One of those she liked was "The Smuggler's Treasure."

Megan said she's read all of the Harry Potter books. Her mother said, "She's more likely to discuss the Harry Potter books with her older sisters."

Both girls also participated this summer in the St. Louis County Library's Summer Reading Program.

Megan and Andrea have another interest in common. Both said they'd like to be fashion designers when they get older.

Andrea recently got new Dream Doll Designers computer software. That allows her to mix and match clothing styles. She also can change size, shape and features of the model.

Both Megan's and Andrea's moms said the best thing about the kid-adult book club was the sharing they got to do with their kids.