The Boomerang Book Club
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Year-long (10 months): $450.00
Semester (5 months) : $230.00
One Book (1 month) : $ 49.00
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Monthly Guided Book Discussion for Your Teens
Target audience:
- 7th to 10th grades (ages 12—advanced, 13-16)
- Transition to Ownership stage of growth
(Chapter 14 in The Writer’s Jungle). - Starts August 2012
Skip to the 2013-2014 Book List
Read about the Boomerang (the digital issues that go with The Boomerang Book Club).
The Boomerang Book Club
Picture a living room of comfy sofas;
assorted coffee mugs in green, blue, and ochre;
tea, hot water, coffee, and chai;
brownies and chocolate chip oatmeal cookies.Once you’ve kicked off your shoes and have tucked your feet under you, the leader picks up the book-of-the-month—Jane Eyre. She gives a short account of setting and explains a bit about Charlotte Bronte.
Then, as spoons clink and bodies shift to get comfortable, she asks:
“Let’s take a look at the opening two paragraphs. What clues does Bronte use in the setting to create a mood?”
Pages flip open and the first brave soul speaks up.
“The scene depicts a somber, rainy scene.”
Another comments:
“The first line includes ‘wandering’ which doesn’t leave the reader feeling very confident that the story is going somewhere decided.”
And so it begins.
The Skinny
If I could host you all in my cozy living room, I would. Instead, Brave Writer provides you a virtual coffee house—where students gather to freely discuss the novels they read at home.
Rather than reading in isolation, without the benefit of examining the writing and the layers of meaning novelists intend their readers to experience, The Boomerang Book Club provides a forum for that opportunity. Homeschool students especially need the chance to talk about what they read—yet the busy mother-of-many doesn’t always have time to read those lengthy dense books, let alone discuss them in depth!
Let Brave Writer help you out. These book discussions are rich works of fiction and will easily fulfill the English credit requirement for literature for a year of high school.
Teenagers are invited to join our virtual book discussion club, conducted entirely online in the Brave Writer classroom.
Three of our insightful instructors (Jeannette Frantz, Susanne Barrett, and Julie Bogart), will guide students in provocative discussion of the Boomerang books. These discussions are intended to teach your kids literary analysis without the burden of essay writing. All the Big Juicy Conversations about the books will lead to that special brain development—rhetorical insight—that leads to effective essay writing later.
Remember—in Brave Writer, we move incrementally.
- First, we expose kids to great literature.
- Second, we talk about it.
- Third, we write about it freely without structure.
- Fourth, we learn to write about it with structure.
The Boomerang Book Club helps you with steps 1-3.
Your kids will both talk and write about literature without the imposition of academic formats.
We’re sneaky.
All that discussion will be put “into” writing but it will be the kind your kids do all day long on message boards online. They will be “writing” their thoughts in a conversation with other students, guided by probing questions offered by the discussion leader. This rich experience of putting thoughts and insight into writing will create the foundation for applying the insights to academic formats later. In fact, some of them may enjoy branching out and taking one of our literary analysis writing classes later this year.
How it Works
Each enrolled student will receive a copy of the month’s issue of the Boomerang, to be used at home in conjunction with the club (the price of the Boomerang is already included in the fee for participation in the book club; you do not need to subscribe additionally to the Boomerang). The online book club will follow this basic structure each month:
Week 1: Students start reading the book. No discussion online.
Week 2: Students continue to read the book. The instructor posts “Think Piece” questions from the Boomerang; students comment and discuss with each other and with the instructor.
Week 3: Students finish reading the book. More questions are posted with more discussion of literary elements, themes, plot, character development, and literary style.
Week 4: The last batch of questions are discussed. Students and instructor draw some conclusions about the novel on the whole. Students share a favorite quote (what we call a “Golden Line”); they explain to the class why they picked it.
Parents may print the online discussion and save it as evidence of work with each novel. Truly, our students who’ve participated in this discussion format in the past have found it to be the most effective process for becoming competent in literary analysis. The preparation for writing essays later is unparalleled in anything you student can do alone.
The Boomerang Book Club includes a copy of the month’s Boomerang issue, plus access to the online classroom for each month subscribed. Students may enroll for the entire year, for a semester at a time, or for a monthly subscription fee.
If you’d like to participate on a month-at-a-time basis, choose the Individual Month Custom Plan. You simply select the months you’d like to participate and pay for them only.
Year-Long:
10 Months: $450.00
Semester-Long:
5 Months: $230.00
Individual Month Custom (ala carte):
1 Month: $ 49.00
Time off will be granted for holidays.
2013 - 2014 Boomerang Book List
Caveat: Please remember that you’re the parent. If you have doubts about the content of a particular book, please check the reviews of the novel or read it for yourself first. Some of these books have themes requiring some maturity.
August: Hunger Games; Suzanne Collins
(ISBN-13: 978-0439023481)
Link for reviews.
An action-packed introduction to the popular dystopian trilogy.
September: Flowers for Algernon; Daniel Keyes
(ISBN-13: 978-0156030304)
Link for reviews.
Award-winning exploration of mental disabilities and genius as shown through the eyes of a human test subject.
October: Pilgrim’s Progress; John Bunyan
(ISBN-13: 978-0486426754)
Link for reviews.
The timeless Christian allegory of one individual’s road to salvation.
November: The Outsiders; S. E. Hinton
(ISBN-13: 978-0140385724)
Link for reviews.
Ponyboy is the endearing protagonist of this ‘60s novel about Oklahoma street gangs.
December: Right Ho, Jeeves!; P. G. Wodehouse
(ISBN-13: 978-1406904833)
Link for reviews.
Set in 1920s England, this is a light, funny installment of the ongoing antics of Jeeves (a butler) and his bumbling master.
January: Fault in Our Stars; John Green
(ISBN-13: 978-0525478812)
Link for reviews.
A quirky account of stage IV cancer as experienced by the irreverent heroine Hazel.
Note This novel contains some curse words and alludes to sexual activity between teens. John Green is a highly popular YA writer and this novel is a national best-seller, but please be sure you are comfortable with the content.
February: House on Mango Street; Sandra Cisneros
(ISBN-13: 978-0679734772)
Link for reviews.
Beautiful vignettes of a young Chicana’s relationship with home and identity. Prose like poetry.
March: I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings; Maya Angelou
(ISBN-13: 978-0553279375)
Link for reviews.
A classic memoir from the beloved African-American poet and civil rights activist.
April: Sold; Patricia McCormick
(ISBN-13: 978-0786851713)
Link for reviews.
A haunting story of human sex trafficking through the eyes of a thirteen year old girl in Nepal.
May: Blink; Malcolm Gladwell
(ISBN-13: 978-0316010665)
Link for reviews.
A non-fiction dissection of unconscious human behavior.
How to Sign Up for the Boomerang Book Club
Year Long
10 months of The Boomerang Book Club—the equivalent of one high school credit of literature. $450.00
Sign up here.
Semester Long
5 months of The Boomerang Book Club—the equivalent of half a high school credit for literature. $230.00
Sign up here.
Individual Month Custom
You select which months you’d like to enroll your student. $49.00/per month.
Sign up here.
Payment by check
Send a check (made out to Brave Writer LLC) to the following address:
Brave Writer LLC
7723 Tyler’s Place Blvd. Ste. 165
West Chester, OH 45069
Include:
- Student name
- Email address
- Phone number
- The Boomerang Book Club
Refund Policy
The discounted, year and semester long prices are non-refundable subscriptions. If you aren’t sure whether or not The Boomerang Book Club is for you, sign up for the monthly subscription so that you can cancel when you’d like to.
