How we chose our books and set up our group

Each month, the girls read the same book (and moms are encouraged to read it as well).  FYI, I have rediscovered my love of children's books.  Such fun stories and a lot less "trying too hard."  I have started reading other Mighty Girl books from the lists to think of titles for the future.  There are some truly fantastic books on the lists.  Have not found one yet that I haven't enjoyed.

The second Tuesday of every month, we meet at one of the girls' houses for a simple dinner, book discussion, and some sort of related craft or activity.  Initially me and another mom worked closely together to choose books, and agreed we would host between our two houses.  When the other girls/moms were invited, they were told they were welcome to host but it was not expected.  This seems to be a good way to do things since some moms in our group are about to remodel their homes etc.  

All of the girls are in the same grade and on similar reading levels.  We looked up each book's reading level to choose if it was a contender.  Our school uses ACCELERATED READER so we tried to keep the books in the range that would be acceptable for them using the website for AR Bookfinder.

Books were all chosen from A Mighty Girl's book lists. 

Our books for the first five meetings are:
1.  OTHERWISE KNOWN AS SHEILA THE GREAT by Judy Blume
2.  THE NIGHT FAIRY by Jennifer Schlitz
3.  TURTLE IN PARADISE by Jennifer L. Holm
4.  THE MAGIC HALF by Annie Barrows
5.  THE YEAR OF THE DOG by Grace Lin

We followed the guidelines from Mighty Girl about how many girls to invite.  We also were careful to choose girls of the same age so the books weren't too hard or too easy for club members to read.  Our group has 6 girls and 5 moms.  Because two girls are coming from another activity, it made sense to just make a simple dinner for all the girls.  

We sent an email to all the moms with the list of books with links to the Mighty Girl site.  Many books can be found at Half Price Books, or the library, as a lot are Newberry winners, etc.  However, if ordering from Amazon, we suggested they click through the Mighty girl like so they get a portion of the sale.  (I have no connection to the site other than being a huge fan for all their work at putting together the lists, etc.  I probably sound like a sales person, but wow, what a great resource!) 


We set the first meeting date a month away and chose the second Tuesday of each month as our meeting date.