On the Same Page

In the novel being discussed by the San Gabriel Valley book club, a boy named Will leaves his family and makes a long, dangerous trip to avoid “capping,” a procedure that embeds a mind-controlling metal cap in the flesh above the skull. Horrifying as capping may sound, it is considered a routine rite of passage by most people in the post-apocalypse world of “The White Mountains” by John Christopher.

Club members spent some time on obvious questions: Did they ever doubt that Will would arrive at the rebel mountain haven? What exactly are Tripods, the huge metal things that now rule the Earth? Are they living beings, or terrifying vehicles being operated by creatures inside?

Soon, however, the club was discussing the book as allegory for complacency and conformity in modern life but using none of the language one picks up in college. Or high school, for that matter, because in this particular book club, the members are all sixth-graders and their mothers.

“Most people don’t even think of not being capped,” said Rachel Guest, 11, of the book. “I’m always thinking of goofing off, but I never do it. Then I stop thinking about it. And it’s almost like being capped.”

“You just tend to be obedient in school,” Laura Perry, 11, agreed. “You want to get good grades. You want to look good to your friends.”

Book clubs, popular with adult readers for years, are far less common among children. But some parents see them as a way to encourage reading. Interest also has been sparked by the book “The Mother-Daughter Book Club,” (Harper Perennial, 1997) the account of a successful East Coast group by its founder, Shireen Dodson, assistant director of the Center for African American History and Culture at the Smithsonian Institution.

Since its publication, libraries in Yorba Linda and Irvine have started mother-daughter book clubs, which regularly are drawing up to 30 moms and daughters on the last Thursday of each month.

Letitia Salter, who launched one at Heritage Regional Library in Irvine in March in response to an anonymous suggestion box request, said it has been rewarding to watch mothers hear their daughters express their thoughts.

“It’s a chance for moms and daughters to communicate, to deal with each other in a nonthreatening way because the discussion is about a character in a book,” said Salter, a county library assistant who lives in Anaheim.

The Heritage Regional Library group is for girls 10 to 12 years of age, and just had its third meeting on the last Thursday in May. In part, Salter said, it’s a way for mothers to forge bonds with their daughters as thoughtful adolescents before the onset of the difficult teen years. And in that way, Salter sees libraries branching out from their traditional role.

“It’s like change-your-life libraries!” said Salter. “If I had had a group like that with my mother, who knows what kind of relationship we could have had?”

Dodson, who has some idea of the number of mother-daughter book clubs from a newsletter she briefly published, says the clubs are catching on more quickly in the East than here in the Southland.

“There were six or seven in Southern California, but there are thousands of mother-daughter book clubs out there,” she said.

There also are many that include boys, although she believes that single-gender groups stay better focused on the book at hand.

Dodson wrote that she started her club not because her 9-year-old daughter wasn’t reading, but because “we were constantly butting heads over everyday things. More and more, I realized that I needed--and wanted--to find a way to spend special time with Morgan that would help us understand each other better and give us a close relationship as she grew up.”

Mothers of girls in the San Gabriel Valley club, which has been in existence for more than a year and a half, say closeness and understanding are among the main benefits.

“Hannah and I get into discussions we never would have without the club,” said Diann Kim.

“Sometimes they’ll say things in the group that they wouldn’t say to a parent,” explained Melanie Havens, whose daughter, Caroline, is in the club. “As they talk about the characters, you find out what they think about a lot of things.”

The club started in 1997, the year Dodson’s book came out, although the timing was a coincidence. The meetings were intended as a summer activity for the five girls, who had just finished fourth grade.

“Everybody liked it so much it carried on through fifth grade,” Hannah said.

Now the girls are in sixth grade and the club is still going strong. It meets every five or six weeks on a Sunday evening, rotating in members’ homes.

“The rule is the dads and siblings leave,” Kim said. “It’s a very tribal thing.”

The girls and their mothers gather over hors d’oeuvres, the talk moving from that evening’s book, to earlier books and recent events at school or home. Over dinner the focus shifts exclusively to the current book. After dinner the girls take off to talk or play by themselves.

Books are selected by the host girl, although mothers sometimes influence a decision. Some of the moms lobbied for Judy Blume’s “Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret,” the story of an 11-year-old’s tribulations with looming adolescence.

“We thought it would be good because it brings up puberty issues,” Kim said, “but they launched into a discussion of whether there’s a God.”

The session on “The White Mountains” was lively but brief, mainly because there was little disagreement. All five girls believe Will makes the right choice in risking his life to join the rebels in their snowbound hideaway.

“I’d go to the White Mountains,” said Caroline Havens. “All the hardships would be worth it to be free.”

The book was the group’s first science fiction selection. Members said it is an example of how the club has introduced them to genres they hadn’t considered reading. Still, in a poll of the club’s favorite selections, “The White Mountains” received no votes.

The top book was “Ella Enchanted” by Gail Carson Levine (Harper Collins, 1997), a retelling of the Cinderella story. Rachel explained its popularity, saying, “The girl was really independent and didn’t care what anyone thought.”

Capable, self-confident heroines are a common thread in many of the members’ favorite books.

Natasha Lewis said of “Catherine, Called Birdy” by Karen Cushman (Clarion Books, 1994). “I like it because she plays pranks on all the men who come into her life, because she doesn’t want to marry them.”

In “High Wizardry” (Doubleday, 1990) by Diane Duane, additional strength comes from being a child. “I like how it was girls,” said Laura, “and the younger sister was more powerful than the older sister, because the younger people didn’t know what isn’t possible so they were more powerful.”

But one of the club’s best times was had with James B. Garfield’s “Follow My Leader” (Scholastic, 1987), and it wasn’t a discussion at all.

“The book is about this boy who becomes blind after an accident,’ said Hannah. “We played a game where the girls and moms would close their eyes and try to figure out who was not in the room.”

Dodson believes the payoffs of a book club are many.

“Clearly it’s a multifaceted benefit,” she said. “You do get the better communication and the child reads more and her thinking improves. The analytic skills are better. Teachers will say they can understand a story more fully and deconstruct a character. It shows up in their writing skills.”

All in all, just about the opposite of being capped.