How to Start a Children’s Book Club

Since required school reading can sometimes take the fun out of books, it’s important to make sure your children maintain an enjoyable relationship with books. A wonderful way to keep reading exciting is a book club.

Here’s what you need to know to host your own Children’s Book Club:

Participants

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Simply ask your child which friends they’d like to invite. Don’t forget to consider some friends from activities outside of school like sport teams, dance classes, art classes, etc. As far as group size goes, we suggest about four to eight children and their parents. That way you can make sure there’s not only a lively discussion, but everyone has a chance to talk as well.

Location, Length & Frequency

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You can be in your own home, or make it a field trip and meet at your local library, book store, coffee shop or restaurant. You can also rotate meeting locations every time. We recommend meeting for about 1 ½–2 hours at the most. It gives you plenty of time to read, have a discussion and do a fun book-related activity.

Sandra Harris from Classic Play suggests meeting every 6 weeks. Any shorter would be too infrequent and any longer you might lose momentum.

Books

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If you’re having trouble narrowing down which book to pick, your local librarian is the perfect person to ask for suggestions fit for your age group.

Discussion

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The great thing about book clubs is you get to discuss themes and topics from the book. Here are a few things to remember when facilitating the discussion:

• Ask questions that require more than a yes or no answer
• Make sure you give the kids time to answer the questions
• Facilitate but don’t dominate the discussion
• Encourage participation by making sure every child’s opinion is valued
• Don’t force reluctant participants

Activities

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Activities are probably the most important part as far as kids are concerned. Although the reading and discussion are important and can prove to be entertaining, activities are the easiest way for kids to have fun (and release some energy).

Here a few fun book-related activities:

• Watch a movie based on the book
• Make book-related crafts
• Make kid-friendly snacks inspired by the book
• Have the children act out a scene from the book
• Have the kids dress up as their favorite character from the book