Mother-Daughter Book Club: Your Club's First Book Selection

I recently wrote an article on the topic how to start a Mother-Daughter book club with your friends and their daughters. If you have decided it is time to get your book club going, you might be wondering what to read for your very first selection. For our club, the answer was simple. Our very first book club selection to kick off our group was "The Mother-Daughter Book Club" by Heather Vogel Frederick.

What makes this novel so interesting for your first selection is that the characters are involved in the very same process you are entering into with your daughters. This book would be appropriate for clubs with girls in the fourth grade or older. As you read through this book, you and your daughter will find yourselves comparing your club to the club in the story. The four mothers and the four daughters in the novel each have very unique personalities and traits. Everyone will enjoy considering who in your club is like each character in the book! This makes for excellent discussion after you have completed the book and gather together at your first club meeting.

In "The Mother-Daughter Book Club" four mothers meet in a yoga class and as they learn to know each other, they decide to form a book club with the express purpose of spending more time with their pre-teen daughters. Each mother has a unique background and each finds themselves in an unusual time in her life. One mother, a beautiful and successful former model, has just moved to town after her husband died. The intellectual of the group is the librarian, who is grounded and happy but not as financially secure as the others. The third mother has found herself and her family in the unique position of becoming suddenly wealthy after her inventor husband finds success. Finally, the last mother in the group runs a wonderful farm with her family but is lured to the city to pursue an acting career.

Their daughters are equally interesting and different. Meet Megan, Cassidy, Emma and Jess who are thrown into this crazy new book club idea hatched by their mothers! None want to participate in this group and, with the exception of two girls, they aren't even friends! Megan is the fashionista of the group and would much rather be shopping than book clubbing with girls with whom she finds nothing in common. Cassidy is the new kid on the block and the resident tomboy who plays hockey with the best of the boys. Emma is the dowdy, bookish girl in the group who loves reading anything she can get her hands on and is an aspiring writer. Unfortunately, she is not happy about spending time with Megan, her once best friend, who now wants nothing to do with her. Lastly is Jess, farm girl and nature lover who is often made fun of by the other kids. To make matters worse, after her mother heads to New York, her father is left to attend the book club as her stand-in mom.

In the novel, their first book club selection is "Little Women" by Louisa May Alcott. As the girls and their mothers come together to read, they eventually come to enjoy their little group and look forward to their future meetings. The book travels their journey through "Little Women," which is also fun for lovers of Louisa May Alcott books reading "The Mother-Daughter Book Club." Of course, the book contains moral lessons appropriate for your young readers that provide an interesting subplot throughout.

If you visit Heather Vogel Frederick's Website you will find a downloadable Mother-Daughter Book Club kit in .pdf format from the publisher, Simon and Schuster. This will make your first book club meeting a huge success. In addition, I note that she has put out a special invitation for Mother-Daughter clubs: Heather has been traveling the country and attending book club meetings! Check out her website for details on making a request for her to come to your book club meeting!

The book is a thoroughly enjoyable read for mothers and daughters alike. At our own book club, everyone agreed that it was a great choice for our first selection. The book itself has a wonderful list of discussion questions in the back for you to use at your book club meeting. Not only was the book fun to read, but it gave our daughters an idea of how our club could continue to develop. If you make this your book club's first selection, I believe you will be quite happy with your choice!

Stayed tuned for our club's next Mother-Daughter Book Club selection!

Source: Personal Experience