GatheringReaders 2013: A Book Club for Young Readers in Singapore

And we are back for the New Year! I am very happy to share that the book club for young readers that I am facilitating at the Jurong West Public Library would be continuing its run this January – June 2013. Here is the poster that was created by the fabulous NLB People.

Book Talk: First Session

We just had our first session yesterday, and as per usual, it was devoted to ‘booktalking’ whereby we nominate and decide on the books that we would be reading for the next five months. And the children have spoken, the books have been selected.

February: Poetry

3 February  Virtual Discussion (https://gatheringbooks.wordpress.com)
17 February  Jurong West Public Library, 2nd level, 11-12nn

The kids were given a choice of whether we would be reading Requiem: Poems from the Terezin Ghetto by Paul Janeczko, Margarita Engle’s Surrender Tree or Shel Silverstein’s Where the Sidewalk Ends. And the children’s choice is:

March: Email an Author/Meet a Book Artist

10 March  Virtual Discussion

17 March  Jurong West Public Library, 2nd level, 11 am – 12nn

Since this is quite a busy month for most of the kids, we are hoping to invite an author, book artist, storyteller for our face-to-face session on the 17th of March and hopefully the kids can also get in touch with an author of their choice.

April: Fiction

7 April  Virtual Discussion

14 April  Jurong West Public Library, 2nd level, 11 am – 12nn

I was very pleased to see that the kids came prepared for this session. Most of them brought their ‘favorite’ books for nomination as could be seen in the spread of books here, and they gave pretty good justification as to why they think the books should be read by the rest of the group.

I also shared a few titles alongside neat book trailers. And the children have chosen this book for April:

May: Award Winning Book

5 May  Virtual Discussion

12 May  Jurong West Public Library, 2nd level, 11 am – 12nn

We have quite a few nominees for this one: The Giver by Lois Lowry, from the mixed up files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by e.l. konigsburg and Brian Selznick’s Wonderstruck. And the children’s choice is:

June: Graphic Novel

9 June  Virtual Discussion

16 June  Jurong West Public Library, 2nd level, 11 am – 12nn

The nominees for this category include Kazu Kibuishi’s Amulet Book One: The Stonekeeper, Gene Luen Yang’s Level Up, David Almond’s Slog’s Dad, and Anya’s Ghost by Vera Brosgol. And the children have chosen:

Looking forward to our upcoming sessions. For people who may still be interested to join, do email gatheringbooks (at) yahoo (dot) com to register.