Mother-Daughter Book Group - How to Grow a Great Group!

Bread and Roses, Too

I so thoroughly enjoy my own book group, that when my daughter and I were approached to join a Mother-Daughter Book Group, we were thrilled!  My daughter and I both share a love of reading and this was a perfect opportunity for some bonding and learning!  At Busy Bee, we received a reader request for Mother-Daughter book group advice and so here are my thoughts on this terrific topic!

Gather a Group

  • I’d recommend between four and six mother/daughter pairs to get started.  If you have too many members, there won’t be enough time for everyone to voice their opinions. 
  • Look for girls who read at a similar level and who share a love of books.  Don’t be overly concerned that the girls are the best of friends, or all from the same school.  For this type of group, it’s nice for the girls to be exposed to friends outside of their regular circle and to maintain friendships with girls who might attend other schools.

Meeting Specifics

  • Plan to meet once a month.
  • As a group, choose a meeting time and date. 
  • Decide if a weeknight or weekend is best and then, day or night time.
  • Make things easy for yourself by designating a specific date and time for each meeting and stick to it! (For example, the 3rd Wednesday of each month at 7:00 p.m.)

Host Duties

  • Arrange for members to take turns hosting the monthly meetings! 
  • The host should be responsible for providing discussion questions and refreshments.  Whenever possible, pair your snacks to the setting of the book! (With that in mind, The Tale of Despereaux, a story told by a mouse, required a buffet of cheese offerings!) 
  • You can also get clever with the presentation of the discussion questions.  One selected novel lent itself to slipping the questions into fortune cookies and in another case the set of questions were attached to tea bags!

Appoint a Secretary

Every successful book group requires an attentive secretary!  The duties of the secretary include:

  • Keeping the members aware of the upcoming novels and future meeting locations. 
  • Creating a brief summary of the group’s thoughts on the book of the past month! 

E-mail is the easiest way to accomplish these duties!

Selecting Your Books

As always, this is the most important facet of any book group!  If members don’t enjoy the selected books, your group will not survive its first meeting!  When selecting a book consider:

  • The girls’ reading level
  • The content of the book
  • The possibility that many of the girls may have already read that fabulous book you’d like to recommend! 
  • And don’t forget about your daughter’s required summer reading list!  Don’t hesitate to choose a book that will fulfill a school requirement, while also being a great book group read!
  • For ideas on resources for selecting great books, see Great Books for Kids and Teens.

As a group, you will need to decide how each month’s selection will be chosen. 

  • In my daughter’s group, the month before we host we bring 3 or 4 books to the meeting.  A vote is taken with a majority rule. 
  • In other groups, each member brings a few books to the meeting and one or more books are chosen by consensus.  

Both options have their benefits - the voting method gives the host family a sense of ownership over the book, and the consensus method allows the group to select several books at a time and the reading can then be done at your convenience. 

Tricks of the Trade

  • Buy Two Copies - Unless the book of the month is only available in hardback, buy two copies – one for you and one for your daughter!  Another idea is to buy one copy and get the second from the library.  Sharing one book gets a little stressful if you both want to have the book read and digested in time for the meeting!
  • Head to the Internet - Don’t hesitate to head to the internet for discussion questions!  You’ll be amazed at what is out there!  Just google your book title along with the phrase “book group discussion questions!”
  • Have Fun! - Keep in mind that this is supposed to be FUN!  Try not to pressure the girls for answers or make the meeting too serious!
  • Plan Enhancement Activities - Try to enhance your meetings with other activities.  Has your selected book been made into a movie?  Rent the movie or head to the theatre!  In addition to watching movies, our group attended a local theatre production of Stargirl and an operatic production of The Picture of Dorian Gray!  

Wrapping Up 

Establishing a Mother-Daughter Book Group is a wonderful endeavor!  With little effort you can enrich your relationship with your daughter, encourage exciting reading choices, promote friendships and initiate stimulating discussions.  This is a fabulous combination and I hope that Busy Bee readers will give it a try! 

Let us know if you decide to launch a group and what you decide to read! 

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