I think we had a great meeting last week.   We met to discuss the book Allie Finkle's Rules For Girls Bk. 2:  The New Girl.  It started out with a difficult wordsearch.  I'm impressed that the girls finished it so quickly.  We had lemonde, mini cupcakes and cookies as a treat, but don't worry, as per Allie's rules, there was nothing red. 

We started the discussion by talking about our favorite characters from and parts of the book.  Most everyone liked Allie the best, but Sophie was also on the list.  One of the girls liked the part when Rosemary was stuffing the boys heads in the chairs.  My personal favorite part of the book was when Allie got the courage up to ask Rosemary to come to her house for lunch.  I liked that Allie was trying to be friends with Rosemary instead of being mean back to her.

We talked about whther or not it would have been cheating for Allie to purposely spell a word wrong during the spelling bee.  Most of the girls said it would be, but one of them brought up an interesting point.  She said that by spelling a word wrong it would give someone else the opportunity to win.  It would make the other person happy.  I guess it all depends on why Allie wanted to drop out of the spelling bee.  In the book it says that she didn't like the pressure from her classmates and was scared what would happen if she was one of the last ones then got one wrong.  I think she was scared of Rosemary, mostly.  She would have been giving up the spelling bee because she was scared, not because she wanted to help someone else. 

Another thing we talked about was how Allie handled the bullie.  We talked about the different people who gave her advice and what they said.  Her dad taught her how to fight, but her grandma told her to not fight back and to tell her mother. Uncle Jay told her to "psych" Rosemary out.  It was the janitor who gave her the best advice.  He said Rosemary was feeling left out and that all she wanted was to be included.  That's when Allie invited her over for lunch.  I loved that the girls in the group caught on to the fact that the best way to handle someone like Rosemary is just to be nice to them. 

After the discussion had wound down I presented the book options for next month.  I wanted to pick books that went along with the summer reading theme of "One World, Many Stories."  I had a hard time decided what books to share, so I brought three instead of the usual two.  Here are the books I presented.

A Single Shard by Linda Sue Park:  In 12th-century Korea, the village of Ch'ulp'o is famous for its pottery. The orphan Tree-ear spends his days foraging for food. Because of his wanderings, Tree-ear is familiar with all of the potters in the village, but he is especially drawn to Min. When he drops a piece Min has made, Tree-ear begins to work for him to pay off his debt, but stays on after the debt is paid. Sent to the royal court to show the king's emissary some new pottery, Tree-ear makes a long journey filled with disaster and learns what it means to have true courage.

Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne:  In this all-time favorite, Phileas Fogg and his manservant set out to win a wager by travelling around the world in 80 days. They embark on a fantastic, action-packed journey into a world filled with danger and beauty, from India to the American frontier.

Extra Credit by Andrew Clements:  It isn’t that Abby Carson can’t do her schoolwork. She just doesn’t like doing it. And consequently, Abby will have to repeat sixth grade—unless she meets some specific conditions, including taking on an extra credit project: find a pen pal in a distant country. But when Abby’s first letter arrives at a small school in Afghanistan, complications arise.


And the winner is....Extra Credit by Andrew Clements.

Our next meeting will be July 22, 2011 at 3:00 pm in Community Room A.

Stay tuned next week for more about our new book.