BOOK CLUB PANIC

[penmage]

I'm suddenly having a panic attack. My teen book club is meeting this weekend, and I haven't picked the next book for us to read, and suddenly I'm riddled with panic. I haven't read enough books. I don't own enough books! What do I pick?

You know and I know I've read a billion books, but suddenly I can't think of anything and everything I think about seems wrong. Getting a second opinion would help, I think.

Here's my criterion: the age group is 11-14, girls. They're all really strong readers. The book we pick should be high level, but free of any content parents might find objectionable, what with me being married to the rabbi and all that. No sex, no major profanity.

Our previous reads have been The Shadow Thieves by Anne Ursu and Chains by Laurie Halse Anderson.

I'd like to read with them something that they probably haven't already read, so I'd prefer a newer title--also because it will be easier for them to find copies of a book that's newer on the market.

PLEASE TO GIVE ME SUGGESTIONS.

Comments

[janni.livejournal.com]

I think for Life As We Knew it one could have interesting discussions of how one works alone and with one's community in a crisis. One of the things, much as I adore that book, that I think in retrospect it underestimates is the power of people working together--everyone sort of goes into huddled down alone survival mode, and while that's one way to survive, I'm not sure it's the best or only way to survive.

And like Miranda even wonders at one point, do you even want to survive under those terms? One could argue Mom's boyfriend had it right, even though he paid for choosing to help others.

But that wouldn't be a cheery discussion. :-)

[penmage.livejournal.com]

Heh. Cheery indeed. In the dead & the gone (which I will always, always spell lowercase, because I know that's how Susan Beth Pfeffer meant it to be) there's more of a sense of community of sorts in New York--and it still doesn't work out very well--if anything, with the context of Life As We Knew It as a backdrop, it's even more grim because you know that there's no hope anyway, no matter what they do.