How To Start A Mother Daughter Book Club

Mother/Daughter Book Club - Jan Risher

Three years ago, at the advice of a dear friend, I started a mother/daughter book club with my oldest daughter. We invited several of her friends and their mothers and a few mother/daughter combos we didn’t know well, but we knew they were avid readers.

We’ve settled into our little group of four pairs of mothers and daughters. We meet once a month. We’ve gone back and forth between mothers and daughters picking the books — mothers picking primarily because we’ve been at ages when the daughters were unwilling to put themselves out there far enough to suggest a title. But now that our group as been together a while, the girls are getting more bold. We mothers realize the whole thing works much better if the girls pick the books. I’m not sure how many of our recommendations they’ve embraced — even though we’ve worked hard to pick young adult hits.

My friend who recommended we start the mother/daughter book club said she and her recent college graduate daughter did it throughout her daughter’s middle and high school years. She said, sometimes the book of the month was their only safe topic of conversation and that the steadiness of meeting with a group of girls and moms each month was good for them both.

Three years in, I concur.

If you’d like to start your own mother/daughter book club, here are a few recommendations:

1.     Four or five pairs of mothers and daughters work well.

2.     Consider people you don’t know well but you know enjoy reading.

3.     Intermingle activities that go with the theme of some books with pure book discussions. For example, we did a pottery outing when we read A Single Shard (by Linda Sue Park).

4.     Theme your snacks to go with the books.

5.     Bring in guest speakers, related to the book’s theme.

6.     Be consistent about your meeting time. If you start moving it around, everyone gets confused and the club usually dissolves.

7.     Read the books.