The Mad Hatters Middle Grade Book Club is made up of four members aged 9 – 11. Every month during the school term we explore both fiction and non-fiction targeted towards kids in upper primary school. We cover a range of genres and writing styles to broaden their variety of reading material as well as take into consideration what they do and do not like to read.
Term Three & Four were relatively stable with, thankfully, no lockdowns to disrupt schedules. We did, however, have a few absences scattered here and there due to end-of-year commitments.
Each month the kids read a new book and rated it on a 5 star scale:
1 star = not-so-good/didn’t finish; 2 stars = okay; 3 stars = good; 4 stars: great; 5 stars: excellent.
Book #1: The House on Hoarder Hill by Mikki Lish & Kelly Ngai (Chicken House)
We chose a mystery/adventure book for our first book of Term Three Book Club—a safe bet for our book clubbers who love mystery books. The House on Hoarder Hill, with its mysterious mansion setting, gothic plot elements and delightful roster of inanimate object characters elicited comparisons to Her Perilous Mansion, which we read last year. This book, however, received a few more positive reviews, though we agreed the end of the book dragged on a little.
Rating: One ★★★★, two ★★★½, one ★★½ and one ★ ratings.
Book #2: The Astonishing Future of Alex Nobody by Kate Gilby Smith (Orion Children’s Books)
Our second book was a time travel adventure novel. The concept of the book, the friendship between the main characters, and the ending reveal was praised, but book clubbers agreed that the middle of the book lagged and made it much less exciting than it could have been.
Rating: One ★★★½, one ★★½ , one ★.
Book #3: Devils in Danger by Samantha Wheeler (UQP Books)
Contemporary books continue to be a popular choice for our MG book clubbers, and we chose to read Devils in Danger by local author Samantha Wheeler. This book was also assigned to our Junior Book Club, and some of the members attended a book chat and writing workshop hosted by Samantha Wheeler. Book Clubbers praised the characters, plot and enjoyed learning about Tasmanian Devils. They found the main character, Killarney, very relatable and brainstormed their own eco-awareness ideas.
Rating: Two, ★★★★★, two ★★★★.
Book #4: Poison for Breakfast by Lemony Snicket (Bloomsbury)
I chose Poison for Breakfast for our next read, hoping we would have an odd murder mystery-style book. Unfortunately, myself and book clubbers found the storytelling laboured and the frequent musings of the narrator frustrating (though some of the points he made we did like), and we all agreed we would have preferred to have read a more traditional murder mystery.
Rating: One ★★★, one ★★½, one ★★, one ⅕ star accompanied by the note: worst book ever! (ouch)
Book #5: Treasure in the Lake by Jason Pamment (A & U Children)
We chose a graphic novel for our next read. Graphics novels are normally very popular, though book clubbers do read through them quickly and rarely re-read them as we recommend. Treasure in the Lake polarised our book clubbers. They liked the time travel and stylistic elements, though they found some of the panels confusing, and the action scenes difficult to connect. They also needed some clarification about scenes that involved characters from the past.
Rating: One ★★★★, one ★★★, one ★★, one ★, and one ‘1000 millionth of a star’ (again, some very harsh ratings this term!)
Book #6: Dragon Skin by Karen Foxlee (A & U Children)
For our last book of 2021, we picked a safe bet with another contemporary story. Like many contemporary stories, Dragon Skin deals with dark elements, in particular the (off-page) death of a friend, emotional abuse and dealing with grief, and while I always worry about introducing such topics to the group, they proved more than capable of understanding and engaging with the story. Not only did they love the book, but they examined the characters, plot and themes—including those darker elements— with introspection and empathy, picking up on the subtler parts of story telling, including the use of symbolism and metaphor. One of my favourite discussions this year was our interpretation of the dragon and what it represented to each of the characters.
Finally, to burn off some energy, we added a drama component to MG Book Club, where members choose to act out their favourite scene. Unfortunately for everyone, that scene involved hearing me sing to a toy emu (our stand-in dragon.)
Rating: One ★★★★½, one ★★★★, one ★★★, one ★★½.
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