Book Club Next Selection… Out of My Mind by Sharon M. Draper
Thank you to everyone who was able to make it to Book Club this week. Despite some technical difficulties with TinyChat, I really enjoyed the experience and I hope everyone else did, too!
If you missed it, Sarah from Australia (aka GloomyMushroom) did a nice outline of what we discussed: http://adiek84.wordpress.com/2013/02/16/chat-summary-annas-book-club-episode-1-the-house-of-the-scorpion-by-nancy-farmer/
(By the way… I was mistaken, the sequel to The House Of The Scorpion, titled The Lord of Opium is due out in September of this year, not November.)
At the end of the chat I announced the next book:
Out of My Mind by Sharon M. Draper
It’s realistic fiction, so this will be a much different selection than the last. Although it is appropriate for a little bit of a younger audience (listed 10 years old and up), I think it is beautifully written and I hope that other adults and teens will enjoy it as much as I did.
Time and date for next meeting will be determined soon.
If you made it to our first Book Club, please be so kind to give me a little feedback in the comments section of what worked for you or if you have any suggestions for improvement!
Anna Shinoda 
Finished “Out of My Mind” a few weeks ago and thought it was a really sweet book. I’m an ER nurse and am feeling like I’m starting to lose some of my compassion. This book really touched my heart. It made me stop and think about what my patients (and their family’s) are going through and perhaps helped me gain back a bit of my compassion. Thanks for recommending it. 😉
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Anna,
I just finished reading “Out of My Mind” and am still wiping away my tears. Thank you so much for choosing this book. It touched me in more ways than i can possibly tell you. I am the mother of on 11 year old boy who has Goldenhar’s syndrome. He looks and moves differently than most children, his body is covered with scars from open heart surgeries, a cervical fusion and numerous other procedures. He had a trach until he was five and did not speak until he was 4. I remember saying that Ben had hundreds of words in his head and could not get them out. He would try so hard to say something and when he couldn’t make himself heard he would walk up to a wall and bang his head against it. We tried to learn ASL together but we never knew if the words we learned were the words we wanted to say. Thank God he eventually needed to be on a ventilator less and less and with intensive speech therapy he now talks constantly.
He goes to a very small school and the kids there have accepted Ben just as he is, but I worry that this will not always be the case. Ben realizes he is a bit different than most kids and for the most part it doesn’t seem to bother him, but when he is suffering with the intense pain of cyclic vomiting syndrome he we say that all he wants is to be a normal kid, and that breaks my heart.
Ben has been through and continues to go through more than most kids ever imagine and I am planning to read this book with him. I think there will so much about Melody that he will relate to.
I can’t wait for the chat…I will probably read the book several more times before then.
Thank you Anna
Deb
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Dear Anna,
firstly, thank your for doing this bookclub, thank you for taking time to organizing this for us. I really enjoyed the chat, so many comments, thoughs, ideas, and opinions… it was so interesting, e.g. they were opinions they changed my opinion, too. But I think the best part is in this, that not everybody has to agree as it wouldn’t be much of a discussion so… and we did a great ’job’ I guess… it was so good to read your thoughts guys!! I really enjoyed the book, it was a good choice, especially because I’ve never heard about this book before… The chat was a really good idea too, it worked, I think it’s important to making sure that everyone feels that their voice has been heard… and you did it right, Anna. The lovely thing about being part of a Book Club is the opportunity to talk about our own thoughts and the opportunity to learn something new about different „topics”.
I’m sure the next book (Out of my mind) will be a good one too. I don’t know how will I able to get it, maybe I’m going to buy it somehow, but I’m not even sure, that I can buy it. There is no hungarian version of the book, and it’s not a big deal, I understand English but until now I couldn’t find the way to buy it. It would be really sad, I would be really sad, because I read the summary and I’ m very curious. I am a big fan of books, reading is and my passion for as long as I can remember so it’s so nice to be able to ’get’ together people all over the world to talk about what I enjoy most. And I wasn’t a part of a book club before, so thank you again to doing this! I love to belong to a book club… 🙂
xx Alexa xx
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I just finished reading “out of my mind”. Thank you so much for choosing this book! It is incredible! Cannot wait to discuss it!
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Reblogged this on Adiek84's Blog.
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Time for feedback! 😀 First of all, the book club was a great idea, from reading the book to the “book club chat” afterwards. I’m very happy you organized this!
1. Book choice: The fact that you choose the books is making this book club really attractive. I like to read books that I don’t know or would’ve never picked up myself, because it broadens my mind and makes me come out of my little genre box. I usually have “genre phases” where I read only one type of genre for a certain time. When I’m sick of the genre, I jump to the next one. It’s actually quite nice to give this a rest and read something totally different.
2. Chat: You seemed to have prepared the questions beforehand and I really liked how you steered the chat into a certain direction BUT gave us time to discuss and go into a totally different direction. You didn’t seem to stick to your “protocol” but picked up topics we mentioned as well. This made the chat so fluent and interesting. We stayed online for about 1,5 hour (+ break) and I didn’t even notice how the time flew by.
My favorite moment: when someone asked for the name of the book almost at the end of the chat. It was quite hilarious, but at the same time, the discussion motivated someone who obviously didn’t participate in the chat for book club reasons to at least ask for its name. Mission accomplished!
My question is, what did YOU pick up from the chat? You must’ve read the book at least two times, did we even mention things you didn’t come up with?
I have already ordered book 2 and look forward to the next chat.
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This book is not available in Brazil and I don’t like to download books, so I bought on the Internet and I’m waiting to get here. Read it in English will be a huge challenge for me cause I’m not too fluent… Wish me good luck! XD
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Yep! I bought the book at B & N last night, and I am already 82 pages into the book! It’s really good! Thanks for suggesting this! My mom is also into these books, so when I am done I’ll let her read it!
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Again, thank you so much for starting this book club. It’s great to share all these ideas with so many people and you gave me motivation to start reading again, because I had lost a bit of my interest in it lately. I already read 2 books since The House of the Scorpion and I bought Out of My Mind yesterday, so can’t wait to read it! Thank you so much 🙂
As for the chat, I really loved it! As many people already said, it was great to see all the opinions and I think I like the book even more now. All the perspectives made me think about the plot even more, and it’s definitely a great book and you can mention so many things about it. I hope the sequel will be as good or even better!
I’ll see you on the next chat!
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I couldn’t make it for the chat even though I’d have liked to, I had family issues at the time, but I hope I can make it for the next one! I haven’t read a good book in a while now, even though reading is one of my hobbies, I just couldn’t find the time for it, so this would be great start 🙂
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Thanks for doing this, it was so much fun!
It was very interesting how everyone was sharing their thoughts and concerns on the book and honestly, the questions you asked were just wow! You made us look at the story of the book from a whole different perspective involving real life as well, it was great!
I definitely can’t wait for the next one!
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Reblogged this on Miss Mushrooms and commented:
This really made my day….thank you so much for the shout out it’s really greatly appreciated that you took time out from your hectic life with your family etc to come talk to us.
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Thank you for the book chat, it was great. Excited about the next book, Just got it, I will start it right now 🙂
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First of all thanks again for the idea of the Book Club. This is a great opportunity for me to share my thoughts about books I’ve read because no one around me is that much of a bookworm as I am.
I also like the idea of someone else choosing a book for me to read because usually I’m used to other sorts of books so this is great to broaden one’s mind.
Generally I really enjoyed the chat yesterday. Everyone was bringing in different thoughts and opinions and I really loved that. Like Trixi said, it was all about the book and that was great.
I’m really looking forward to the next Book Club and to enjoy reading ‘Out of My Mind’.
Thanks again for taking your time and doing this with us! 🙂
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Thank you once again for even doing this. I think I never would’ve joined a book-club, because not many of my friends are into books the way I am. So this here gives me opportunity to be in a book-club with all my friends who are 1000km away and that’s just awesome.
I really liked it yesterday, the comments and thoughts were super good. Some of them were things I did not thought of and they put the book in totally different light for me, so that was awesome!
Also great how everyone participated and actually talked about the book, only few questions that would’ve belong in the chat on Thursday. That surprised me but it was good and I liked it. It was all about the book and that’s great.
So thanks again for this 😉
I already ordered the new book… can’t wait for the next book-club 🙂
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I read the plot summary of Out of My Mind and cannot wait to start the book. As the mother of a special needs child who did not speak until age 4 and still has significant motor delays I believe that this novel will touch my heart in more ways than I can possibly imagine.
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Thank you so much for the shoutout! I’ve already bought it from iBooks and the synopsis looks great. Can’t wait to find some time for myself and read it.
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