Do you know any moms who are involved with mother-daughter book clubs?
If so, I’d like to introduce you to Cindy Hudson, an author and mom who has been involved with mother-daughter book club organizing for the past decade.
Today, Cindy’s daughters are almost all grown up. One is spending a college year abroad and the other is in her senior year of high school.
But Cindy doesn’t worry about staying close to her kids because she has spent years in meaningful conversation with her daughters and other moms and their daughters tackling and discussing a wide range of topics that might not have otherwise have come up in everyday conversation.
If you live in the sleepy suburbs, as I do (or even if you don’t), you probably recognize that there are many topics that might never come up in everyday conversation with our daughters, but books can provide a lens through which to view a bigger, more complicated world without adding any risk or danger to the safe, secure childhoods we want our daughters to have.
Because Cindy understands what it’s like to be a busy mom who wants to find ways to stay close and connected to her daughters as they grow, she has created Mother-Daughter Book Club Meeting Planner Guides as a follow up to her helpful Mother-Daughter Book Club guidebook, Book By Book, The Complete Guide To Creating Mother-Daughter Book Clubs (Seal Press 2009). LINK
Cindy is launching her first meeting planner guide collection today, Mother-Daughter Book Club Meeting Planner Guides: Collection One. Each of the six meeting planner guides in the collection contains:
- A review of the book
- Information about the author
- Activities related to the book
- Discussion questions created specifically for the book
- Recipes that are relatively easy to make and tie in to the story
Books can open doors to wild, colorful worlds, and mother-daughter book clubs can be a great way to explore and discuss those worlds without ever leaving your neighborhood. Cindy’s new meeting planner guide collection is a terrific asset for any mom-daughter book club organizer…or any mom who is thinking she might like to start a mom-daughter book club some day.
Thanks for helping me spread the word! Here’s a conversation I had with Cindy about the great work she does in the place where literacy and mom-daughter bonding meet:
Cindy, where did the idea for mom-daughter book club planning guides come from?
I often hear from moms and librarians who lead book clubs, asking me for ideas of what to do at their meetings. I know from my own experience that planning a book club gathering can be a challenge. It takes time to figure out how you’ll lead the discussion, what kind of activities you want to pull together and what food to serve. The guides I have created put all these ideas into one document along with a book review and an interview with the author to make planning a meeting easy.
It sounds like you have a depth of knowledge about the inner life of mother-daughter book clubs, how did you become such an expert?
It all started when I created my first mother-daughter book club with my oldest daughter ten years ago. I started another with my youngest daughter three years later. A few years after that, I developed MotherDaughterBookClub.com to provide a resource for moms, librarians and others who were in groups of their own, and I have learned even more from readers who write in to ask my advice or tell me of their success stories.
What are the benefits of mother-daughter book clubs for those readers who might be considering starting one with their daughter or daughters?
There are so many benefits I could go on and on, but if I had to narrow it down to just a few, these are the ones I think are most important.
1. Mother-daughter book clubs help you stay closer to you daughter as she grows.
2. They help you connect with the broader community around you, such as other moms and daughters, librarians, teachers, and more.
3. They keep moms and daughters reading for fun, which has proven to be one of the most effective ways to promote overall literacy throughout your life.
How do your meeting planner guides make a mom’s job easier when she’s hosting a mom-daughter book club at her house?
I’ve included way more ideas than can be used for one meeting, so a mom can choose the ones that will work best for her group. The activities and recipes in the guides include options that are easy as well as those that are more complicated, so she can pick what works with the time she has available as well.
Are there other ways to use these meeting planner guides that might not be immediately apparent?
When moms buy the collection, the whole group benefits from easy planning for six meetings. For some groups, that’s a year’s worth of book clubs. And of course, if you like the recipes you can use them even when you’re not planning a book club meeting.
One of your daughters has gone off to college and now off for a year abroad, do you credit the mom-daughter bookclub you started together for keeping you close today?
Absolutely! Being in book club kept us talking through the most difficult teen years, and reading the same books that she did gave me insight into issues that were important in her life.
Which part of being an expert on mother-daughter book clubs is your favorite part?
I truly believe mother-daughter book clubs change lives, and if I can help even one more get started by doing what I do, that makes me very happy.
You can learn more about Cindy, Mother-Daughter Book Clubs, Cindy’s Guidebook, and her new collection of Meeting Planner Guides at her website.
Thanks for helping me support Cindy’s Meeting Planner collection launch. I appreciate your help spreading the word!
Comments on this entry are closed.
I loved being part of a mother-daughter book club with my daughter and would recommend it to everyone! This new guide sounds like a truly valuable resource in planning the meetings… what a time saver. And if you are just starting your club having these ideas all in one place will ensure that your club gets off to a great start. Thanks, Christina, for getting the word out…