Top Five Books for Book Clubs

Thank you Two Writing Teachers for creating this space for me to share my corner of the world.

Book clubs are something I did as an elementary teacher, but had not tried it as a middle school teacher until last month.

I knew middle school students loved to talk, so I thought book clubs would be a great outlet in which to do this.  I began applying for grants, creating Donor's Choose projects, and purchasing books to establish a book club library.  When I started book clubs, I had over 20 different titles and six copies of each one to distribute to my five classes.

Here are our top five titles for this round:

The War with Grandpa is an older title, but such a fun one.  It is an excellent text for teaching basic story elements for those readers who are not ready for a difficult text.  Wonderful themes of war, peace, making choices, and relationships with the elderly.

Crossover was a hit with both girls and boys...and even another teacher.

Circus Mirandus is just a magically beautiful book.  Most of the students who read this commented on how they normally would not have a chosen a book like this, but really enjoyed it.  That is the power of book clubs.

I Am Number Four is a series that has taken off with my higher readers.  I have not read this, and I normally do not include books that I have not read.  But this has been such a hit, that I knew it would draw some interest.

Absolutely Truly is another book I have not read.  Here is the comment I received from a student:  "It was a mystery that turned out to be a love story!"  

I learned many lessons from our first round of book clubs which will be a future post, but overall, it was a success!