Shhhhh.  This is all sort of top secret, so as a mother I really shouldn’t be sharing all these details.  But apparently our children have formed their very own book club.  The members are Sam and Maggie, along with two of their oldest family friends.  These four brilliant children have picked a name, designed a logo, and even invented a secret handshake for their new club.  (They also requested three meetings per week, but as parents we had to draw the line somewhere.)

My friend Nancy planted the seed while the kids were all eating dinner at her house one night last week, and the idea has snowballed from there.

They call themselves ELMS.  E = Emily  / L = Lia / M = Maggie / S = Sam  (Clark thought they should call themselves “SMEL” instead, but that didn’t go over so well.)

Here is their logo:

Here are the members, holding their ballots after choosing their first book:

In a vote of 3-1, they chose Black Stallion by Walter Farley as their first title.  (The dissenting vote was for Judy Blume’s Fudge series.)  They are all excited to meet in late July to discuss their opinions about the book, its themes, and (mostly) to play again.

They also reluctantly let us videotape their secret handshake.  “Are we gonna be on YouTube?” they asked excitedly.  So much for the “secret” part!

Obviously literacy is important to all of our families, and our young children currently love to read.  We’d like to keep it that way.  We hope that by allowing our children to tie their social life to literacy will hard wire a positive connotation with books.

They already know that once a month Mommy skips off to “book club,” and they frequently ask what book I have read and enjoy my censored and abbreviated descriptions of what my crew is reading.

Now they have a book club all their own.  They couldn’t be more proud!

As for our family, we have finished the first two chapters of Black Stallion and we love it!  The language and vocabulary are stretching the kids beyond the books we usually select for read alouds, and I’m proud to expose them to some classics.

I have a hunch… this is the start of something good!