Hello everyone,

Meeting #38 commenced with good news about Olivia’s book review, The museum of broken things by Lauren Draper, being published in Good Reading for Young Adults (October/November 2022). It was also republished in the October 2022 issue of Good Reading magazine. This is the first book review written by Olivia for publication. Congratulations Olivia.

A warm welcome to new members, Maggie and Rochelle, at this particular meeting, and great to see our Book Club regulars.

Here’s a recap of the books we discussed during Book Club meeting #38 (it turned out to be quite a long list!):

• Zoe read, or should I say ‘devoured’, Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie, reading it in under twelve hours! Zoe is also currently reading The Catcher in the Rye by J.D Salinger.
• Lillian shared Daughter of Darkness (House of Shadows #1) by Kelsey Batchelor which is a Greek mythology story based on the tale of Orpheus. Lillian is also reading the Lord of the Rings trilogy by J.R.R Tolkien and The Crucible by Arthur Miller.
• Katie shared her thoughts about an adult mystery novel, The curfew by T.M Logan. It’s about five teenagers who go into the woods, with only four returning. Despite being annoyed so far by teenages (who aren’t saying anything about what happened) and boring middle-aged men, it sounds like the story is interesting and Katie will persevere and keep reading to find out what’s happened. We’ll be interested to hear what happened and if it was worth reading until the end!
• Irish is reading Murder in Thrall: a Doyle & Acton mystery by Anne Cleeland. Irish commented that this story has detailed crime scenes, the dialogue is sometimes a little bit bland but it makes sense. It’s about a detective and a chief inspector solving crimes. It will be interesting to hear how this story ends or is solved as well. 
• Faith has been re-reading The School for Good & Evil by Soman Chainani. There’s two schools – one school for evil, and one school for good – they are supposed to educate people that go into fairy tales – so the villains would usually go into the school for evil; and the heroes would go into the school for good. People from the town get dropped into the schools every four years. There’s two girls – one of them is the stereotypical ‘good’ person and the other girl is the ‘evil’ person – and they get dropped in what they think is the school for them, but it is actually the opposite. The movie has been recently released.
• Olivia is also reading The School for Good & Evil by Soman Chainani. Oliva describes it as a story with a bit of everything – love, hate, enemies, acquaintances. This has been quite a long time favourite series for students. 
• Ms McNamara shared an article about inner deep listening, a word, concept and spiritual  practice called ‘dadirri’ (da-did-ee) from the Aboriginal peoples of the Daly River region (Northern Territory, Australia). Ms McNamara described the practice as being in tune with earth and nature, listening to the trees and the sound of the streams. It is about being still and instead of talking a lot, just absorbing what’s coming to you – waiting in the silence. Ms McNamara shared that this concept fits well with being a counsellor because often you are waiting – waiting for people to find words to describe what they’re thinking.  
• Deeya has been reading the Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard. A popular fantasy series.

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  Maggie shared The Land of Stories by Chris Colfer. It is about two twins who get stuck in the fairy world and are trying to find their way back. It features classic fairy tales and an adventurous plot. This series is popular and has been read by many book club members.

• Rochelle shared enduring and favourite modern classic, To kill a mockingbird. She is also reading the popular series being read by two other book club members, The school for good and evil.
• Mrs Ryan shared The Rosie Effect by Graeme C. Simsion (third book). It’s a funny, satirical book about a man who has autism but does not get diagnosed officially, and now he has an eleven year old son who is showing similar traits. It is about the journey they take. It’s a funny and entertaining read, but it also explores their unique world and experience.
• Mrs Hanratty shared a crime book, White Knights by Ann Cleeves, which is set in the Shetland world. Shetland is an island off Scotland, it’s quite isolated, and Jimmy Perez is the Head of  Police. The TV series has a lot of beautiful scenery and visitors can do tours of Shetland, but the books are quite different to the TV series (naturally, the books are always different to film productions). The setting is one of those countries that has extreme days – in winter they basically have no daylight, and in summer they have no night. They just get this weird twilight that goes for a few hours and then the sun is up again. This book is set in summer. It’s about how people cope with these weather extremes. It was good!
• Mrs Hanratty has also been reading some new texts for review for Year 7 next year including a few novels and play versions of Boy Overboard and Hitler’s Daughter.  

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  Mrs Sylaprany shared Exit through the gift shop by Maryam Masters. A middle grade novel about a twelve-year-old girl dying of cancer. She is still attending school and, apart from her best friend, the principal and her teachers, no one else at school knows about her diagnosis. Anahita (Ana) is a funny, likeable character who, on top of facing her mortality, has a bully. The bully finds out about Ana’s health but this does not stop her bully from mistreating her. Ana goes to the USA with her family for special treatment and makes friends with a girl who is also being treated for cancer in the same hospital. Ana is a wonderful character, with lots of personality, she will make you laugh out loud, but also make you pause and think about life and treasure all the real gifts of life (her family, friends, life, just appreciating every experience).

• Mrs Sylaprany also shared A walk in the dark by Jane Godwin. The setting is an alternative school in regional Victoria and the Australian bush. Students go on a ‘dropping’ one afternoon, where in groups of five they have to navigate themselves through bushland to a set destination. The team is not working together at all and lots of disastrous situations arise one after the other. An opening scene shows a little girl on a bus. Later – it’s not clear what’s happened – she’s on her own and becomes lost in the woods. Fred, the boy who has stormed off from the group of five, has just come across the little girl on her own. What does he do next?
• Mrs Sylaprany recommends reading Evil Genius by Catherine Jinks for students who have enjoyed The School for Good and Evil. 

Book Club question: What do you do if you are in a reading slump?
Book Club members suggested:

• Force yourself to read. Keep going until you find that book that engages you again.
• Re-read books that you like.
• Watch or binge a TV show as this can become boring and make you want to return to reading. Enjoy them but then return to reading.
• Sometimes a break from reading is good (and then you will return to it when you are ready).
• Read a page and then go back to it every ten minutes until you get to a good part. So sometimes it’s about persevering with something until you get into the groove again.
• Alternate between formats e.g read a print book, then listen to some audios, and then return to print books. 

In response to these comments Mrs Hanratty commented “… so this is the thing between readers and non-readers and bridging that gap which I know that Mrs Sylaprany and I, and Mrs Ryan as well, we’ve really focussed on for the many years we’ve worked together now – is how do you bridge that gap? Because good readers will do that, they have strategies where they say you know what, if I just keep pushing on, if I just keep re-reading the page or if I go and do something else, I’ll come back to it, if I just force myself to do it [reading] … because you’re all disciplined readers, like you all know the payoff when you get to it is great and so you keep going. It’s a really different question for students who haven’t got that reading stamina and have not got that build-up. It is a gift. It really is a gift. I can’t tell you how great a gift it is that you have that love of reading.” 

Enjoy your very special gift of reading and keep nurturing it throughout your life. 

See you at our next meeting 🙂
Mrs Sylaprany, Mrs Hanratty & Mrs Ryan