It ain't so awful, Falafel

It Ain't So Awful, Falafel was a great book about a girl growing up in the late 1970s. She's Iranian and she has been repeatedly moving back and forth from Iran to America her whole life and finally, she settles down in Newport Beach, California. Her name is Zomorod which means emerald in Iranian, but she decides to change it Cindy because she thinks it will make her fit in more. All of her family is back in Iran while Khomeini takes over. Part of her is in Iran and the other part of her is in California. The book is sad at some points and really funny and happy at other points. In the book Cindy goes over to her friend's house and discovers taco night. That becomes her favorite meal ever! So we had taco night for our book club.

Boy it was good! But whoever you are I think you should definitely read It Ain't So Awful, Falafel.

Zora's Wild Imagination

In Zora’s mind, it’s all imagination! From neighbors with gator heads, to Gator Kings, Zora’s imagination takes her and her friends on a mysterious adventure. In the book Zora and Me, Zora and her friends Carrie and Teddy hear about strange happenings occurring around the town’s favorite swimming hole, and they are determined to get to the bottom of this gator business.

This incredible mystery was our book club book for Black History Month. The book was most interesting because it was set in Florida, so I really got to compare how Florida used to be to how it is now. When we came together for discussion, our book club mostly talked about the differences between last months’ book, Stella by Starlight, and Zora and Me. One of the differences was that Zora’s life was a lot easier than the characters in the other book because Zora lived in a town with a population of only African Americans, which reduced racial conflicts.  I hope you decide to read Zora and Me, and that you enjoy it as much as I did!

Stella by Starlight

Our last Mother Daughter Book Club book was called Stella by Starlight. It was about a girl named Stella who isn't good at writing and experiences the Klan at times. It takes place a very long time ago, when black and white people were segregated. One of the most surprising parts of the book was when Stella was taking a walk outside at night and she heard a screaming noise coming from a lake, so she went in and something grabbed her. She pulled it to the surface and then looked at it. It was Dr. Packards daughter, Paulette. The worst and most scariest three parts were when Tony got beat up, when the Spencers' house got burned down by Klansmen, and when Stella's mother got bit by a poisonous snake. My favorite part was when Ms. Spencer gave Stella and her little brother, Jojo, tons of gifts. And the silliest part of the book was when Stella's school had the Christmas Pageant. I think that even though Stella had rough times, she still had a good life. I really loved this book, every time I finished a chapter, I was eager to read the next. I think that people should read this book, because once they read the book, the will have learned some very helpful and interesting lessons...

Just As Long As We're Together

I really loved just as long as we're together. And of course it's a Judy Bloom book so it has to be good right? Just as long as we're together was a book about three girls who are best friends and it's all about them and navigating their friendship, it's ups and it's downs. For our yummy snack that we had at book club it was brownies and stuffing (if you read the book you will understand). I don't know that very many people have read this book and it's been around for a while. The only reason we found it was because one of the moms had read it in elementary school. I am super glad we read Just As Long As We're Together!!

It's a NEW year!

We have now been doing our book club for over a year!

I, for one, am so thankful for this Book Club and feel enriched and surprised by all that has come out of it this last year.  I've learned that our 9 year old daughters are very insightful and quite observant.  They draw our attention to pieces of the book we may have skimmed over.

To kick off our new year, we decided to have a "choice" year.  Each mother daughter team brought about 5 books to the table (literally... to the coffee table!) and voted on which books we wanted for 2017.  How did we vote?  Well, first of all, we took turns reading the book jackets aloud, then the 3 girls met and decided there was one book they wanted to toss out of the voting process-- none of them wanted to read it.  Then, we were each given 6 smooth stones we could place on the books we wanted.  You could put all 6 stones on one book if you wanted to be sure it made the list.  Most of us didn't use more than 1-2 stones on each book, though.


And the 2017 picks are... (in order of most stones to least stones)...


And for documentation purposes... here is everything we read from the time we started til now:

December 2015	Hannah Divided
January 2016	Hairspray
FEBRUARY	The Penderwicks
MARCH	Secret Language of Girls
APRIL	Turtle in Paradise
MAY	Story of Ferdinand
JUNE	My Life with the Chimpanzees
JULY	Tua and the Elephant
AUGUST	BREAK
SEPTEMBER	Esperanza Rising
OCTOBER	Vanished
NOVEMBER	The Night Gardener
DECEMBER	Alanna The First Adventure
January 2017	Just As Long As We’re Together

Are You Up for Adventure?

Well Alanna is! She starts out as a young girl who is afraid of the magical Gift she and her twin brother were born with. But Alanna feels uncomfortable about what is next in life and decides to take matters into her own hands. By then, she realizes that her Gift was meant to help the lives of others and without believing in it, she could accidentally hurt or possibly kill a friend! She meets unusual and royal friends along the way, but all the while, getting closer and closer to her dream. I like Alanna and I think that we could be great friends. This is why I chose Alanna: The First Adventure during my turn in book club. I enjoyed coming up with the questions for my two friends, their moms, and my mom. Find more about Alanna and her adventures by reading Alanna: The First Adventure!

This is me and my friends with the book, Alanna: The First Adventure at our book club!

Finding Our Voices After the Election

We're getting to work. We're empowering our girls to be strong leaders. 



3 days after the election, we held an emergency book club meeting.  We've been following Hillary in our book club for a year... we first talked about it when we did our Gender Stereotypes chapter-- and we noticed the different treatment Hillary got compared to the male candidates.  We took note at how she reacted and responded to criticism and bullying.  It's been a lot to process the election results on many levels-- but specifically within what we'd been focused on in our mother-daughter book club, it's tough to reconcile how a woman who worked so hard and had so much experience lost to a man who had no experience and a poor work ethic.

We read Still I Rise by Maya Angelou, we made beaded safety pins to wear to show we are allies (above), we talked about how we feel and what we can do, we quilted a square for Hillary's quilt, we wrote to Hillary to thank her for being an inspiration and role model. 

We are girls. We are women. We are mothers. We are strong. 
We fight for what's right and for what we believe in. 
#motherdaughterbookclub #stillirise #hernextchapter#stillwithher

Our quilt square for Hillary's Thank You Quilt (All Hands In)



Still I Rise..


Letters to Hillary