Mother Daughter Book Club Meeting #5

Summary: Kit Kittredge is enjoying the carefree life she has always known—until suddenly her world turns upside down. First, mother’s friend and her sickly, pampered son, Stirling, come to live with the Kittredge family. Then Kit’s dad loses his business. Will life ever be the same again? -- American Girl

I'm beginning to think that we need to change the name of our Mother Daughter Book Club to the Daughter's Only Book Club! These girls are just amazing -- they started having their own discussion about MEET KIT while their moms were chatting in the kitchen. I felt a little left out last month, so I kind of invited my way into their conversation. I'm so glad I did because these girls were having a wonderful discussion about the book. All of them loved this story, and they agreed that they want to read the next five books in the series.

I thought they did a really good job of talking about the Depression and the effect it had on Kit and her family. I tried to bring the Depression a little closer to their lives by asking them if they had any relatives that lived through that horrendous time. It was very interesting to watch them as they grasped that their great-grandparents lived during the Depression -- I definitely think it made the book more real to them.

A few of the girls had already seen the Kit Kittredge American Girl Movie and loved it! Our plans to go as a book club kind of fell by the wayside. Unfortunately, my daughter went with a friend so I didn't get to see it. I guess I'll just have to wait for it to come out on DVD!

We also spent some time talking about Kit's family's decision to take in boarders to help pay the mortgage. (A funny little aside -- One of the girls mentioned to her mom that she thought it was really sad that the bank owned their home -- her mother had to break it to her gently that her current house is actually owned by the bank as are all of her friends' houses.) Most of the girls admitted that they wouldn't want to give up their rooms for strangers; however, they would do it if their family needed the money. They appreciated that Kit made the best of her move to the attic and got to decorate the room to her liking. All of the girls really comprehended the message from this book that "even when life get tough, you should always try to make the best of it."

For our next meeting, we will be reading THE MOUSE AND THE MOTORCYCLE by Beverly Cleary. Once again, the girls got to choose which book they wanted to read -- THE MOUSE AND THE MOTORCYCLE or KIRSTEN'S SURPRISE (another American Girl book.) By a vote of 6 to 1, THE MOUSE AND THE MOTORCYLE won. I was a little surprised since they enjoyed the American Girl book so much, but there seems to be a trend that the daughter-nominated book is the one that they pick. I happy either way because you really can't go wrong with a Beverly Cleary book!