We chose Guys Read: Other Worlds for our second 3rd Grade Book Club for Boys. Our first was a book swap and was meant to warm the boys up into believing that Book Club for Boys is SUPER FUN AND EXCITING! And, by parallel, reading is too! Did it work? Yes! They all showed up again!
Our motivation for Guys Read: Other Worlds was predicated on a few things: 1) Rick Riordan is wildly popular with the boys in our book club, 2) the boys have read all his books … but not this new short story and 3) short stories work for all different levels of readers.
Because I am lazy, I did the first activity that popped into my head. Aliens were the first thing I thought of since Guys Read: Other Worlds has many alien themed short stories.
First: We build aliens out of legos. (We have tons of Legos that I bought my son to keep him off screens.)
Second: We build “Angry Birds” type of structures using blocks in teams. (Learning to work in teams is the real education going on here. My son came up with the “Build Angry Birds Structures” shoot-down game previously.)
Third: We shoot down the structures using Nerf Guns. (My kids have been battling with Nerf Guns all winter in the basement when we insist that they exercise.)
A good time was had by all. After the Angry Birds Shoot Down ended, the boys organized themselves into an all-out Nerf gunfight and things got a little crazy! The boys, however, highly recommend the Guys Read series! I polled them for their favorite stories and they are noted below.
Guys Read: Other Worlds edited by Jon Scieszka
Prepare yourself for ten trips into the unknown, as ten of your favorite writers—Rick Riordan, who has written an all-new and exclusive Percy Jackson tale, Tom Angleberger of Origami Yoda fame, Newbery medalist Rebecca Stead, Shannon Hale, D. J. MacHale, Eric Nylund, Kenneth Oppel, Neal Shusterman, Shaun Tan, and none other than the late Ray Bradbury—spin tales of fantasy and science fiction the likes of which you have never imagined.
Their favorite stories from our book club were:
1) The Warlords of Recess by Eric Nyland. This was, by far, the crowd favorite!
2) Bouncing the Grinning Goat by Shannon Hale. My son and I loved this short story! We hope she will write more books for 9-year-old boys!
3) Frost and Fire by Ray Bradbury. Won praise for being an exciting adventure!]
4) Percy Jackson and the Singer of Apollo by Rick Riordan did not disappoint this Riordan-obsessed crowd! We get to meet him next week at a book event! Stay tuned!
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Yup! You nailed it! Us guys like snacks, getting together and either building cool stuff or wrecking stuff or both, and when we have to: reading about cool stuff. Awesome job! And I believe John Scieszka has put together a dream team of writers for boys as well.
Hi Jim,
The Guys Read series has been a lot of fun for my son and I to explore different authors. And the book club has worked out really well in terms of getting boys excited to read. Some of the boys naturally read a lot but not all of them and this gives them a chance to do something together that makes reading fun. The Nerf Gun “Angry Bird” shootdown went well but it evolved into an all out war of Nerf Guns afterwards. One boy cried because he had to leave before he was ready.
But I think most of the boys read most of the stories so that is a victory!
The key to getting boys reading is making it “look cool.” Peer pressure starts younger and younger, Great activities to keep the boys focused and interested.
Hi Barbara,
Yes, there is a lot of peer pressure starting in K and 1st grade to read chapter books. The kids seem to think that only early chapter books signifies that you can read and everything else is “babyish.” But the boys seems to also love graphic novels which makes me happy and very few of them don’t love Percy Jackson or action adventure series like that.
This is fabulous, Mia! My son would adore your book club!
Hi MaryAnne,
Your kids are such great readers that they don’t need a book club for motivation but it is fun and my kids have said that it’s their favorite activity. We do also seem to have waves where we are hosting book clubs and then a long period where it doesn’t happen.
Thanks so much MaryAnne for your kind words!
I used to belong to a boys book club (before we moved). We read Guys Read Other Worlds for our club too. 🙂 I love the description of your club- sounds super fun!
Hi Erik,
That is so fun that we both did Guys Read: Other Worlds! What was your activity? Mine was a little crazy but it was based on what my son loves to do. What other books did you read in your book club?
Ahk! We read Guys Read Thriller for book club – I just reviewed Guys Read Other Worlds (I read too many books! 😉 ). For Guys Read Thriller we made a story up to go along with the cover picture because there really wasn’t a story to go along with it. We also made ghost vision glasses to go along with the story by Patrick Carman. For book club we also read Darth Paper by Tom Angleberger, Attack of the Vampire Weenies by David Lubar, The Genius Files Book 1 Mission Unstoppable by Dan Gutman, and Mr. Chickee’s Messy Mission by Christopher Paul Curtis. I wish I was still in a boys book club. I tried to get one started at school but I need a teacher to say they’d help. 🙁
Hi Erik,
Thanks so much for your book club books and activities! Our boys book club also has fits and starts but if it continues, I would love to use some of your books for the 3rd grade boys.
There is a book club for boys that was started in 2nd grade (now the boys are in 8th grade) and a mom I know ran it. I think it lasted until 5th or 6th grade but I’m not sure if it’s still going now. The mom had created a really cool game based on books for kids which won a bunch of awards but is not available anymore. I think the book club lasted until around Middle School and then most likely the boys just got too busy. It was a Mother/Son book club and the meetings were based on an activity and lasted one hour. The moms attended the book club with their boys. I went to one with my girls’ book club. http://www.pragmaticmom.com/2011/07/teach-me-tuesday-the-lost-boys-and-girls-of-sudan-book-club-for-kids/
My middle school girls said that their English teachers ran book clubs in their English class. I think it’s just a group of kids who read the same book and discuss. I wonder if your English teacher would consider that.
Thanks for the suggestions! I’ll try to see if I can get one going! 🙂
Hi Erik,
I hope it helps! How fun that you got to meet Rick Riordan with Stanley and Katrina blogger’s daughter! Are you at the same school? My son would love to meet Rick Riordan one day! That must have been a memorable experience!!!
Felicia and I don’t go to the same school. I “met” her when I reviewed her book and then our mom’s got us tickets to see Rick Riordan for his House of Hades book tour and then we met in real life. 🙂
Hi Erik,
I love your series where you interview kid authors! What a great way to meet fellow student authors! And what a thrill it must have been to meet Rick Riordan!!
I love this idea! The boys book club sounds like such fun. The activity and book both sound awesome. I have one of the Guys Read books- but I haven\’t gotten to read the stories yet. Thanks for the reminder. I can read a story here and there. 🙂
Hi Jess,
I love the Guys Read series for that very reason; it’s easy to slip in one story at bedtime or anytime. And the stories that my son loved make us hunt down the author to see if there are more books like that story. Thanks so much for stopping by!