Najla Albeayeyz is a BookSpring volunteer from Saudia Arabia who started a book club during her junior year of high school! Starting a book club with friends is easy, and Najla has advice on how to keep it going. Read on for tips on how to implement this fun activity!
I started a book club a couple of months ago. It’s been a rollercoaster, but it’s honestly been the best thing I’ve ever done!
Books have always been really important to me. In a way, they sort of changed my life — if it weren’t for books, I would’ve been a totally different person. Having access to books helped develop my social skills, writing, and critical thinking. Books helped expand my imagination and improved my vocabulary at an early age.
Therefore, running a book club is extremely rewarding and worth it. Here’s what it takes to run one.
Patience
You need a lot of patience. Starting a book club is really easy, but keeping it going is a bit troublesome. You’re assigning books, organizing meet-ups, and promoting positive and thoughtful discussion between the members.
Social Skills
You’re dealing with plenty of different personalities. Try and keep a close relationship with members and take in as many book club suggestions as you can. Make sure everyone has a chance to speak.
Time
As I mentioned previously, you’re going to have a lot of responsibilities and tasks to get done in order to keep the club going and make it enjoyable. Choosing the book itself can take up to three days and organizing the meeting can take up to a whole week.
Organization
I personally track everyone and everything in my club. I use a google sheet to track attendance, members, contact information, meeting dates, and who moderated the meetings. Tracking this information isn’t essential, but it does make things easier in case we need to go back and check on something
Commitment
As the leader, you’re pretty much responsible for every single thing, and a single slip up or absence can slow down the entire club. I think having a Co-President is good in case you’re ever having an emergency, or you just want to run your decisions through someone else!
Thanks to Najla for volunteering her time and perspective!
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Check out some Young Adult/Teen book reviews.
Check out Five Fantastic Bilingual Books in Spanish from Kids’ Club Spanish School for book recommendations.
