We had a fun second year of our book club for middle schoolers (although we only had two middle schoolers)! Here are all the ideas, links and discussion guides that we used for our meetings!
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Eagle Drums
Eagle Drums taught us about the Iñupiaq Native Americans of Alaska. We read this along with other picture and chapter books for our state study of Alaska.
Here is a free guide: Mackids School and Library Discussion Guide
From the publisher: “As his family prepares for winter, a young, skilled hunter must travel up the mountain to collect obsidian for knapping―the same mountain where his two older brothers died. When he reaches the mountaintop, he is immediately confronted by a powerful eagle god named Savik. Savik gives the boy a choice: follow me or die like your brothers. What comes next is a harrowing journey to the home of the eagle gods and unexpected lessons on the natural world, the past that shapes us, and the community that binds us.
“Eagle Drums by Nasuġraq Rainey Hopson is part cultural folklore, part origin myth about the Iñupiaq Messenger Feast, a Native Arctic tradition that is still celebrated in times of bounty among the Iñupiaq. This story is based on the oral tradition of how Iñupiaq people were given the gift of music, song, dance, community, and everlasting connection. Hopson’s full-page illustrations and spot art, rendered in colored pencil, accompany this memorable story.
The Black Stallion
We were learning about horses when we read this classic. The audiobook version is very exciting, especially the way he reads it in a pivotal scene towards the end (no spoilers!)
Then we met with our book club friends at a horse farm where we fed and brushed horses! If your kids love horses, this is the first of a 20-set series.
Take this free and fun 25-question quiz by Book Rags.
From the publisher: “First published in 1941, Walter Farley’s best-selling novel for young readers is the triumphant tale of a boy and a wild horse. From Alec Ramsay and the Black’s first meeting on an ill-fated ship to their adventures on a desert island and their eventual rescue, this beloved story will hold the rapt attention of readers new and old.”
Masterpiece
This was the first book we read by Elise Broach, and my kids became enamored with the characters of Marvin and James! Elise Broach also wrote a set of a set of spinoff books for Emerging Readers. My 7 and 9 year olds enjoyed reading those on their own!
Back to Masterpiece, this is the perfect book to pair with an art study about Albrecht Dürer. There is additional information in the end notes about the various works of art mentioned in the book. We learned about the ink drawings and printmaking by Dürer and then met our book club friends at an art exhibition about M. C. Esher–another master of ink drawings and printmaking!
Here is a Discussion Guide on the author’s homepage. Another companion idea is to have your kids try their own hand at pen and ink drawings, using hash marks of different gradients as the illustrator does throughout the book.
The Phantom Tollbooth
This is such a fun and witty book, a fantastical journey into words and grammar. There are so many opportunities to discuss puns and wordplay! For book club, we did a few literary activities like Mad Libs and then created our own poems using magnetic poetry.
All Sci Fi has Discussion Questions for Educators.
From the publisher: “For Milo, everything’s a bore. When a tollbooth mysteriously appears in his room, he drives through only because he’s got nothing better to do. But on the other side, things seem different. Milo visits the Island of Conclusions (you get there by jumping), learns about time from a ticking watchdog named Tock, and even embarks on a quest to rescue Rhyme and Reason. Somewhere along the way, Milo realizes something astonishing. Life is far from dull. In fact, it’s exciting beyond his wildest dreams!”
Duet
Another book by Elise Broach! Music, especially the piano music of Chopin, is my jam!
Combine this read with: a music study of Chopin, a study on the tone and timbre of period instruments, an art study of Delacroix, and/or a nature study of goldfinches.
Compare the tone and timbre of period instruments: Erard 1843 vs Pleyel 1843
Art Study: Portrait of Chopin, Portrait of George Sand, Portrait of Frederic Chopin and George Sand, by Delacroix
The book highlights a few of Chopin’s pieces. Here is a playlist of music mentioned in Duet that you can listen to as you read. Don’t worry if your children get tired of listening, especially to the longer pieces. It’s fine to stop the piece when they want to, or to have the music on in the background as they are doing other things.
I played two pages of a Chopin Nocturne on a modern-day piano. I play the piano and happened to have been practicing some Chopin in my spare time. If you don’t play the piano, using a YouTube is great! I let the kids look at the sheet music first so that they could imagine a bird trilling along to the melody.
I created a Jeopardy game based on facts that were learned in the book from these topics: Chopin, George Sand, Eugene Delacroix, Historical Pianos, and Goldfinches.
From the publisher: “Welcome to the world of Mirabelle, a young goldfinch who loves to sing and dreams of becoming a musical star. She lives with her family in the backyard of a piano teacher, and she is quickly intrigued by Mr. Starek’s newest pupil. Michael Jin is an eleven-year-old keyboard sensation, but lesson after lesson, he refuses to play. With the prestigious Chopin Festival looming at summer’s end, how will he be ready in time? Mirabelle is responsible for Michael’s breakthrough—to her own astonishment, she sings the Chopin piece he is beginning to play at the piano. It is their first duet.
“Thus begins a secret adventure that will take Mirabelle and Michael further than they ever imagined—in music, in friendship, and in solving the mystery of a lost piano that could be worth millions. A house full of treasures holds the clues. There, Mirabelle, Michael, and their friend Emily will make an important discovery that links the great composer Frederic Chopin, the trailblazing author George Sand, and the French Romantic painter Eugene Delacroix.
The Last Mapmaker
The Last Mapmaker is a set in a Thailand-inspired fantasy world. We enjoyed Wish in the Dark with our study of Thailand, so I knew another book by Christina Soontornvat would be a hit!
This book could be combined with a study of landforms and creative map activities:
- Learn about landforms with Geography From A to Z
- Choose and few landforms and create your own map
- Label the landforms with interesting names. Explain why you chose those names
The author’s website has a Teacher’s Guide with Discussion Questions and Classroom Activities. (The page of discussion questions are repeated in the Book Club Discussion download).
From the Publisher: “In a fantasy adventure every bit as compelling and confident in its world building as her Newbery Honor Book A Wish in the Dark, Christina Soontornvat explores a young woman’s struggle to unburden herself of the past and chart her own destiny in a world of secrets. As assistant to Mangkon’s most celebrated mapmaker, twelve-year-old Sai plays the part of a well-bred young lady with a glittering future. In reality, her father is a conman—and in a kingdom where the status of one’s ancestors dictates their social position, the truth could ruin her. Sai seizes the chance to join an expedition to chart the southern seas, but she isn’t the only one aboard with secrets. When Sai learns that the ship might be heading for the fabled Sunderlands—a land of dragons, dangers, and riches beyond imagining—she must weigh the cost of her dreams. Vivid, suspenseful, and thought-provoking, this tale of identity and integrity is as beautiful and intricate as the maps of old.”
Big Foot and Little Foot
We initially read Big Foot and Little Foot when I bought a year of Julie Bogart’s Bravewriter Darts to teach grammar. This was one of the monthly units. (Here’s my refer-a-friend link that gives you $10 off Brave Writer products!)
Then, we went on a Sasquatch tangent and read a few other Sasquatch stories while studying the states of the Pacific Northwest.
I didn’t expect Big Foot and Little Foot to be quite so short; it is for the younger end of the recommended age for the Bravewriter Dart (for ages 8-10). My 7 and 9-year olds latched on to the easy chapter book format and asked me to check out the whole series. It’s so great when that happens! Check out this blog post for all the Big Foot and Little Foot titles and other books for Emerging Readers.
For our book club meeting, we went on a geocaching adventure which led to a giant, 2-dimentional, plywood sasquatch figure in the woods! Then we began seeing sasquatches everywhere: car decals, bumper stickers, and other plywood silhouettes around town.
The author, Ellen Potter, has a website with a series of educational writing videos and tips for young writers that are”fresh ways to encourage, inspire, and support young writers’ creativity.”
From the publisher: ” At the Academy for Curious Squidges, Hugo learns all manner of Sneaking—after all, the most important part of being a Sasquatch is staying hidden from humans. But Hugo dreams of roaming free in the Big Wide World rather than staying cooped up in caves. When he has an unexpected run-in with a young human boy, Hugo seizes the opportunity for a grand adventure. The two soon team up to search high and low for mythical beasts, like Ogopogos and Snoot-Nosed Gints. Through discovering these new creatures, together, Big Foot and Little Foot explore the ins and outs of each other’s very different worlds but learn that, deep down, maybe they’re not so different after all.”
Moominland Midwinter
I first discovered Tove Jansson and her quirky Moomin world when we studied Finland. The Moomin books are translated from Finnish and this is the fifth in a series of Moomin chapter books.
Moomin Novels by Tove Jansson:
- Comet in Moominland
- Finn Family Moomintroll
- Moominpappa’s Memoirs
- Moominsummer Madness
- Moominland Midwinter
- Tales from Moominvalley
- Moominpappa at Sea
- Moominvalley in November
We chose to read Moominland Midwinter during the winter and my kids and I revisited my “Discover Finland: A Book A Day” study. We enjoyed all the aspects of Finnish culture that Jansson’s incorporated into her story: sauna, cold plunges, skiing, being outdoors even in the cold. It’s hard to describe, but even the style of storytelling was different from what we are used to. The story wanders a bit with no apparent climax, but there is character growth and heaps of imagination.
Here are beautiful quotes from Moominland Midwinter, featured on the Moomin website. From these quotes, you can see that the translator did a fantastic job!
The kids all made drawings and cartoons of the Moomin characters, suggested in my guide. We had this idea because Moomin was originally conceived as a comic strip.
We now spot stands of Moomin books at bookstores, and our library carries a number of Moomin picture books for younger readers. Many of these picture books are written by Richard Dung and based on original stories by Tove Jansson.
From the publisher: “Everyone knows the Moomins sleep through the winter. But this year, Moomintroll has woken up early. So while the rest of the family slumbers, he decides to visit his favorite summer haunts. When he arrives, all he finds is strange fluffy, white stuff. Even the sun is gone! Moomintroll is angry: whoever Winter is, she has some nerve. Determined to discover the truth about this most mysterious of all seasons, Moomintroll goes where no Moomin has gone before.
Northwind
This book is set in early medieval times of the Norsemen along the coast of Norway. Leif is sent away in a boat due to a plague that has wiped out many in his village. Traumatized by his memories of the plague but required by the siutation to move forward, Gary Paulsen presents another tale of survival. We read this book along with our study of Vikings in Europe during the early Middle Ages.
I personally was not a fan of this type of slow, survival story, which may be characteristic of Gary Paulsen’s books (I don’t know for sure if all of his books are like this because I haven’t read any others). There were many repetitive sentence fragments to show Leif’s despair, which I understand the literary element of, but it was difficult for me to read aloud. The audiobook reader’s voice was extremely droning for me, so that was not an option.
But we did make it through to the end of the book and it ranked pretty highly for some of the kids! So you never know…
From the publisher: “When a deadly plague reaches the small fish camp where he lives, an orphan named Leif is forced to take to the water in a cedar canoe. He flees northward, following a wild, fjord-riven shore, navigating from one danger to the next, unsure of his destination. Yet the deeper into his journey he paddles, the closer he comes to his truest self as he connects to “the heartbeat of the ocean . . . the pulse of the sea.” With hints of Nordic mythology and an irresistible narrative pull, Northwind is Gary Paulsen at his captivating, adventuresome best.”
The Many Assassinations of Samir, the Seller of Dreams
Quite the interesting title, we soon realize that this isn’t about the assassinations committed by Samir, but rather, about all the assassination attempts on Samir’s life. The end notes contain all the historical inspirations that the author drew upon as he set the book along the Silk Road in the 11th century. We read this book in conjunction with our study of the Silk Road and the Middle Ages in Asia.
Here is an amazing and free, 23-page teaching guide by the publisher.
From the publisher: This is the tale of an exciting journey along the Silk Road with a young Monk and his newfound guardian, Samir, a larger than life character and the so-called “Seller of Dreams”. The man is a scammer; his biggest skill being the ability to talk his way into getting what he wants. While that talking did save Monkey’s life, it has left a lot of people furious with Samir— furious enough to hire assassins. Monkey decides to try and save Samir from the attempts on his life—as a way to pay off his debt! If he can save Samir six times, he’ll be a free man…but will they all survive that long?”
The Mona Lisa Vanishes
Lastly, we read this as we studied Leonardo Da Vinci and the artists of the Renaissance. Definitely check out the publisher’s discussion guide for Pre-Reading Activities as well as extension activities and discussion questions.
Here is the Discussion Guide provided by the publisher. In one of the questions, it defines the Narrative Nonfiction category that The Mona Lisa Vanishes belongs to: “Narrative nonfiction typically reads like a fictional story; it is a type of nonfiction writing that is particularly effective at helping readers understand a past time and place.”
While the story is interesting in itself, it doesn’t embellish the facts the way a work of historical fiction would. I like how the author went back and forth between two timelines: the creation of the Mona Lisa during the Italian Renaissance with background on Leonardo DaVinci, and the scene of the Louve in Paris, France, in the early 1900s.
Check out my blog post on Renaissance Books for Kids for more of the books we read about the Mona Lisa, Leonardo DaVinci, and the other artists of the Italian Renaissance.
From the Publisher: “Travel back to an extraordinary period of revolutionary change: turn-of-the-century Paris. Walk its backstreets. Meet the infamous thieves—and detectives—of the era. And then slip back further in time and follow Leonardo da Vinci, painter of the Mona Lisa, through his dazzling, wondrously weird life. Discover the secret at the heart of the Mona Lisa—the most famous painting in the world should never have existed at all.”