Reading With My Daughter

Quite a while ago a good friend recommend The Mother-Daughter Book Club series by Heather Vogel Frederick to me and my daughter. She and her daughter had just finished it up and had really enjoyed it. After checking it out a bit, I thought it might be just the thing to read with The Princess.

The series kicks off with four 6th grade girls and their moms forming a book club and it follows the lives of the girls--their friendships, their trials, their triumphs--over the course of that school year. This first book has the girls reading Little Women and throughout it you will find fun facts about Louisa May Alcott, a discussion guide, recipes, and even a great goal-setting exercise.

Admittedly, I am selective about what my daughter reads and consequently shun much of modern juvenile fiction, but there are definitely good new books being written and I think this is a worthy series. It does include some middle school drama and while we escape quite a bit of that being homeschoolers there will always be some drama with girls in middle school no matter what, so the books are definitely relate-able. Plus some of that girl-drama gave my daughter and me some good opportunities to talk and discuss things of that nature.

The best part of starting this series, of course, is reading Little Women! My daughter is really loving it and I am, too! I hadn't read it in years--and I think it was just a short abbreviated version then. However, there were some spoilers in the book club book, so for the next one I will make sure we read the classic first then the corresponding book club installment.

There are a total of six books in this series. The classics the book club girls read are: Anne of Green Gables, Daddy Long-Legs, Pride and Prejudice, the Betsy-Tacy series, and Jane Eyre.

Since we'll be reading the classics as well as the books in this series, I anticipate it taking us a while. And that's okay! This has been a great experience for me and my daughter so far. I look forward to making some yummy recipes, watching movies of the classics, and having lots and lots of great conversations!

*****

What about you? Have you or your daughter read this series? What did you think about it?

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