The past two Thursday nights I’ve had two book club discussions, one online and one in person. I loved every single minute of them.  For the first one we discussed Little Women, and for the second one we discussed anything by C.S. Lewis.

I looooove Sarah Mackenzie’s idea to make your child’s reading life (whether or not you homeschool) less like school and more like a book club.

It’s all about food and connection. Doesn’t that sound wonderful?

For example, here is a quote from Little Women that three other women and I bonded over in our online book club, from the part where Beth expresses gratitude to Laurie’s grandfather for giving her a piano:

If the roof of the house had suddenly flown off, the old gentleman wouldn’t have been more astonished. But he liked it. Oh, dear, yes, he liked it amazingly! And was so touched and pleased by that confiding little kiss that all his crustiness vanished, and he just set her on his knee, and laid his wrinkled cheek against her rosy one, feeling as if he had got his own little granddaughter back again. Beth ceased to fear him from that moment, and sat there talking to him as cozily as if she had known him all her life, for love casts out fear, and gratitude can conquer pride. When she went home, he walked with her to her own gate, shook hands cordially, and touched his hat as he marched back again, looking very stately and erect, like a handsome, soldierly old gentleman, as he was.

One of my new online book club friends expressed how much she loves that particular phrase “for love conquers fear, and gratitude can conquer pride.” So then I asked the ladies if they had ever experienced a time of love conquering fear, or gratitude conquering pride. What followed was a delightful peek into the soul of those who shared.

So I’m transforming our family life to be like that. (The way I am discussing the New Testament using Come, Follow Me questions around the dinner table is helping. See my blog over here for that.)

Want to know more how to create a book club culture in your family? Sarah can help.

Here is Sarah on her podcast reading aloud Chapter 6 of her book, The Read-Aloud Family, about creating a book club culture at home.

(Hint…you can get the Read-Aloud Family for only $1.99 on Kindle right now! I don’t know how long it will last. What’s great about that is you can have the book lists handy right on your phone to look up books at the public library.)

If you want even more details, she did two podcast episodes about this recently, based on her Master Class called “How to Create a Book Club Culture at Home.”

Here’s part 1.

Here’s part 2.

I have one kid in particular who would be very motivated to read and discuss a book if I told him we would go out for a hamburger date to discuss the book when he is done reading. I am going to do this! Why didn’t I think of this before?!  I’ve done parent mentor dates before, going out to eat, but I didn’t think of using it as an opportunity to discuss a book. You don’t even have to have read the book yourself, as Sarah teaches. Here is a brief summary of what Sarah teaches, over here.