Topic: Book Suggestions for New Book Club

[AmandaSue]

Hey guys, I'm heading up a book club for my church group and so I need to pick a book out for this month. Because it will be the first book, I want it to be short and easy enough to not discourage people from reading and coming right off the bat, and because it is a church group it has to be relatively clean. Not squeaky clean, but no F bombs all over the place or graphic sex scenes.

I wanted to read one of the suggestions in the thread on early runners for the Newbery. I'm going between "Wonder" and "Katerina's Wish". Do you guys have any thoughts or suggestions? I haven't read either one. Which do you think would be better for discussing in our group?

[cindoh]

I haven't read Katerina's Wish, but I think Wonder would be a wonderful first selection. Just a heads up, though, that I'm in a faith-based book club and have pitched reading it and others are reluctant. I think it's because they're dismissing it as a children's book... We've read YA before, so I'm not sure what the deal is. I'm still hoping to change their minds because I think we'd have a great discussion about it.

Another excellent book for a church group would be Marcelo in the Real World by Francisco X. Stork.

Also, a great source for book ideas is shereads.com. Although the books aren't explicitly "Christian" fiction, they tend to have components that lend easily to looking at them from a faith-based perspective. My favorite of the ones that we've read from their recommendations is Vanessa Diffenbaugh's The Language of Flowers.

Good luck!