The Mother-Daughter Book Club: How Ten Busy Mothers and Daughters Came Together to Talk, Laugh and Learn Through Their Love of Reading [Paperback]

Shireen Dodson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 7, 1997 | Series: Stories to Grow on

Combining the practical with the personal, The Mother-Daughter Book Club tells the story of 10 mothers and their preteen daughters and how their relationships were enriched through a monthly reading club. With step-by-step guidelines, stories, anecdotes, reading lists, sample themes and related activities, it offers practical instructions for starting a book club while encouraging mothers and daughters to learn to talk openly with one another.

At a key stage of their daughter's development, mothers will find a hopeful antidote to depression, eating disorders, self-destructive behavior and other problems facing adolescent girls. Most important, The Mother-Daughter Book Club shows that reading, learning and spending time together helps girls build self-esteem.

With suggested reading lists from authors and experts ranging from Kaye Gibbons, Joyce Carol Oates and Tipper Gore to Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Beth Winship and Ann Martin, The Mother-Daughter Book Club has the potential to inspire whole networks of reading clubs nationwide.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Shireen Dodson was on vacation with her family when she decided she needed to find "a way to spend some special time" with her daughter. What she did was start a mother-daughter book club. In this sweet little book, Dodson offers practical advice about starting a similar club. The heart of the book, though, is in the insights she offers about the benefits--the chance to explore ideas and feelings, to discuss each other's lives, and to establish what Dodson calls a "bridge of sharing" that involves both mother and daughter listening to each other.

From School Library Journal

An experienced book group leaders will find helpful suggestions in The Mother-Daughter Book Club, which describes how Dodson invited nine friends and their daughters (ages 9-12) to meet monthly to discuss books. The idea was such a success that she decided to share her experience with others. In the book, Dodson covers how to organize a group, find titles, lead discussions, and other useful tidbits that worked for her. She also includes lists of suggested book titles from celebrities (curiously, some are absolutely identical) along with resources, bibliographies, and sample themes. While the book is very useful, the format is extremely distracting. The flow of the text is interrupted by awkwardly placed boxes containing lists or complementary material. The boxes run anywhere from several lines to several pages, so readers are forced to flip back and forth to maintain continuity. This book has a lot of interesting information, but its use may be somewhat limited for school and public librarians who work with a wide variety of young people and can't handpick their participants as Dodson did.?Susan R. Farber, Ardsley Public Library, NY
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Harper Paperbacks (May 7, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060952423
• ISBN-13: 978-0060952426
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,663,013 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

30 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Anxiously waiting our first meeting., June 30, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: The Mother-Daughter Book Club: How Ten Busy Mothers and Daughters Came Together to Talk, Laugh and Learn Through Their Love of Reading (Paperback)

Give Shireen Dodson and the Mother-Daughter Book Club 10 gold stars. Complete instructions along with excerpts from their members makes this book a must for mothers interested in SHARING special times with their daughters and breaking the communication gap. The book comes with extensive reading lists and letters from a number of famous people from all walks of life. After reading the stories about their meetings and the closeness that can be shared between a mother and daughter through reading, my daughter and I set forth to organize a mother daughter book club in our small south Texas community.The book gave us ideas on how to start and form the club which we are in the process of doing and having our first meeting next week. With this book in my arms I am ready. Thanks Shireen for such a wonderful gift that you have shared with us

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Extremely Useful Resource, February 17, 2007

By 

MA_buyer (Dover, MA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Mother-Daughter Book Club: How Ten Busy Mothers and Daughters Came Together to Talk, Laugh and Learn Through Their Love of Reading (Paperback)

I think the reviewer that gave this 2 stars for the fact that it wasn't about boys completely missed the point. The woman who wrote this book started a mother-daughter book group and wrote about THAT experience. She also folded in a lot of great book recommendations from a variety of sources, along with many tips about how to have a successful mother-daughter book club. If that is what you are interested in doing or have already started, this will be a very useful resource for you. It will give you ideas about books to read, meeting format, additional activities and other places to look for ideas.

A friend and her daughter recently invited my daughter and me to join a book club she was forming. We have used a lot of the ideas from this book and found them to have improved our experience of the book club.

16 of 59 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Jumping on the band wagon, July 12, 2003

By 

"wno123" (Athens, AL United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Mother-Daughter Book Club: How Ten Busy Mothers and Daughters Came Together to Talk, Laugh and Learn Through Their Love of Reading (Paperback)

I thought that the book was going to be wonderful after reading the introduction. However, after reading the first chapter I realized that I was wrong. The concept of a parent/child book club is marvelous, but to assume that boys do not need it as well is idiocy. The author jumps on the band wagon that girls are repressed in the classroom and are in dire need of help. The book includes statements such as reading is "especially meaningful for a girl, because I think in school girls tend to be a little reticent and hesitant to speak up". PLEASE!! Give it up already! Everyone is sick of hearing about how bad girls have it. I have been in a lot of classrooms and let me assure you that girls are NOT afraid to speak up. I am a professional woman with a daughter, and I can only hope that I am able to raise her in today's society without her being warped into thinking that she is some poor child in need of saving because, without intervention, she is destined for failure.
Both boys and girls need to be raised in such a way as to bring out their best and help them reach their full potential. So, stop bashing boys (which is the implied undertone of the message) just to build up girls and stop implying that a girl can not be strong and confident unless she is as good as, or better than, a boy in subjects that are typically dominated by males. People need to realize that children have their own strengths and weaknesses and that is a fact of life.
Why can't someone write a book that is a little positive on subjects like this? It would be a lot better than this biased (and misguided) message.
Great concept, poor presentation.