YO!" m - A Club Where Grownups Are Allowed n i Mi'-Motker- j I | Daughter 1 | Book C Lub J 1 | i u ! i t! Bu>\ ! ? 1 j ::!?! t C liil'' I ! i-.'t.'lilC!' j Talk, f .uiyii 1at ti ! ihr- )ii^ti i In sr } .(>* . . * / /u> . $a!-s'\ j * 8 h ; r. c it O o ii ??! >* * ! 3 ^ A couple years ago, Shireen Dodson was searching for ways to spend quality time with her daughter Morgan. So, she started the Mother Daughter Book Club. The club, which includes 13 girls and their mothers, meets monthly at one of the members' liomes. The mom pre pares the food and the girl serves as hostess and leads discussion about that month's book. The girls talk about the book's plot and characters and setting. When they read Charlie Pippin, for example, they learned about the Vietnam War. The mothers can join in the discussion, too. But the girls cut the moms off if their comments get too long or take over the conversation. The girls choose each month's selection from a book list their mothers put together. The book club, however, is not just about books and reading. It's about explaining, ques tioning and learning. As such, the club helps the girls and their mothers find out how each other feels about different issues. As a result, it strengthens the ties between mothers and daughters. Ms. Dodson wrote about the club in The Mother-Daufhter Book Club: How Ten Busy Mothers and Daughters Came Together to Talk, Laugh and Learn Through Their Love of Reading (Harper Collins). Her daughter, Morgan Fykes, a sixth grader at National Cathedral School in Washington, D C., enjoys reading. That's why 1 like the book club so much," she says. "The other good things about it are I get to play and talk more with my friends and I get i to be with my mom and hear her ideas when they aren't about clean ing up or doing my homework." The other young members also get a lot out of the club. "One of the things I like best about The Mother Daughter Book Club," says Rebecca Chastang, "is that 1 am now more aware of what my mom does, what she thinks is important, what I think is important, the things we do together and some of the things I want to do and don't want to do now when I grow up." Although Ms. Dodson started the book club with her daughter in mind, the idea will also work for fathers and sons. For more informa tion, get your mom or dad to read Ms. Dodson's book. JYO! to* Carole Weatherford Sherry Poole Clark Publishers 3313 Sparrowhawk Dr. High Point. NC 27265 (910) or (910) 379-8295 ? PAX (910) 691 e-mail: weathfd9aol.com FAMOUS FIRSTS I Bill Pickett (1860-1932) was the first black elected to a the National Rodeo Cowboy Hall of Fame. William Dicker, born in 1624 in Jamestown, Virginia, was the first African-American child born in the American colonies. / I ? ? . ? BOOK REVIEWS : CJuicJz. ?-f~ OjLcf! ? A An Angel Just Like Me by Mary Hoffman; I illustrated by \ Cornelius Van Wright I and Ying-Hwa Hu (Dial). When Tyler's jJl family needs a new lijJI Christmas tree angel, he wonders why there aren't any black angels. He ? jP^g .,-v makes it his special project to find a js ? new angle for his family's tree ? one that looks ? like him. But it's not until Christmas day that Tyler finds out that i~Z angels, just like people, can come in all different colors. I ' I The Little Reindeer by Michael Foreman (Dial). One Christmas Eve, a little reindeer falls out of Santa's I sleigh into a snow-covered city. T*he p boy who finds him makes a home t for him in the shed on his roof, and brings him peanut butter sandwich es and milk. Together, the boy and the reindeer spend one magical ? . \ year. I M ? DiANF-GCXXtfrtS ?