Tween Book Club Adventures: in the graveyard

The tween book club voted in September to read a "scary --- but not too scary" book in October. I decided on the wonderful and award winning Neil Gaiman title THE GRAVEYARD BOOK.

THE GRAVEYARD BOOK opens with the tragic story of a small toddler whose parents were murdered in their bed by a man named Jack. This child (later named Nobody or “Bod”) escapes from the murderer by climbing out of his crib, crawling out of his house, and into the neighborhood graveyard. The kind-hearted ghosts who reside in the graveyard shelter him from the murderer and take him into their “home”.


The initial frightening opening scene of THE GRAVEYARD BOOK is soon replaced by a wonderfully tender cast of ghostly characters.   Some of the book club participants enjoyed the frightening beginning of the book and some thought it was a bit too gruesome. Everyone agreed that everything else after the murder was pure awesomeness.

While we were  noshing on pizza, a graduate library school student came in and book talked a list of middle grade  "scary --- but not too scary" reads.  She compiled a sort-of-scary readers advisory bookmark and handed them out to the kids.  Afterwords, we got down to the groups favorite part of book club -- crafting!

This month, we crated little graveyard terrariums.  I got this very cute idea from the Harper Collins book/craft Tumblr page.  This page has a few unbelievably clever and adorable book/craft pairings.

I ended the book club by passing out November’s book club pick.  The I SURVIVED series by Lauren Tarshis is "like, totally super cool" with the tweens right now.  We can't keep them on the shelf.  I highly suggest that you check out the Bryce Don't Play: Shark Week blog post for fun activities to go along with this title.