Mother Daughter Inaugural 3rd Grade Book Group

I have a confession, this happened last Tuesday night. However, my own daughter, the one I started this for, was home sick all last week with a fever fluctuating between 101-103 (was it H1N1? I have no idea – I couldn’t even get her an appointment with a pediatrician. Our neighbor, who is an ER pediatrician, advised me, “The fever is not your enemy, but if she starts having trouble breathing, get her in immediately.”). So my precious sweetie couldn’t even attend. Huge bummer! But I persevered, because I wasn’t going to let any pig virus derail our first meeting!

I was really nervous about whether I could pull this off. I wasn’t sure how committed any of the mothers/daughters were to this activity. And I wasn’t sure whether our choice -- the old-fashioned Betsy-Tacy – was going to appeal to our Hannah Montana–reared daughters. Terror really set in when at 6:35pm (we were supposed to start at 6:30pm) no one was there!

But, guess what? Twosomes showed up! 4 of them in fact! I was thrilled and heaved a big sigh of relief.

I talked a bit about how I thought our book group should proceed – with the daughters doing the author report and asking the questions – with the moms providing assistance when needed. I also gave them a list of rules that I “borrowed” from Caroline by line (thank you Caroline!) that proved invaluable.

And from there the evening took care of itself. The girls, I’m happy to report, LOVED Betsy-Tacy!! I mean they REALLY LOVED this book! There is something to be said for timeless stories about girls and their friends. One of the girls’ favorite scenes was when Betsy and Tacy “pretended” they were floating on a feather. Nothing like make believe! And the moms loved it too. I wasn’t the only mom that hadn’t heard of this book or read it as a child. Some of the girls were more vocal than others. But I’m hoping the more shy girls will follow the others example.

We’ve agreed to meet once a month (except for December, because of the holidays) until school is out. And we’ve committed to read the remaining 3 Betsy Tacy juvenile books (Betsy, Tacy and Tib, Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown and Betsy and Tacy Go Over the Big Hill).

I am so excited about this endeavor. I’ve wanted to start something that was special to me and my daughter. Now, I have to cross my fingers that next month she is healthy!