Buds break open a year’s worth of books

BY SARA KEDDY

Kings County Register

A busy group of elementary students, hockey teammates and friends have been making time for books.

With their first anniversary May 13, the Berwick Book Buds are already looking forward to their June meeting - readers’ choice and a discussion of the group pick, Bone, a graphic novel. “I liked to read books about Pokemon,” says Dawson Schofield of Welsford. “Which explains why we need to expand,” says his mom, Jennifer Flanders Schofield.

The book club was her idea, although she’d really like to be in one herself. “It’s the time and priorities...,” she says. “But we spend so much time driving them to sports, to piano - this is for their minds.”

Dawson, in Grade 3 French immersion at Berwick school, and his Mom asked a few of his school friends, hockey teammates and friends if they’d be interested. Of the initial group last year, there are three originals still turning the pages.

Flanders Schofield picks the book and buys enough for all the kids to pick up when they come to the monthly book club. “When we come back and she asks us questions, we have to go around the room and answer,” says Keisha Kane.

On hand is a supply of maps, a globe, a dictionary, a computer with You Tube searchability, movies made from the original books for comparison and other resource books. “We planted a chestnut,” says Rebecca Barkhouse. “Some of us were waiting to start one day and we were out in the yard looking inside chestnuts. Someone asked, ‘why don’t we plant them?’ So we did.”

For Rebecca’s mom, Sue, that’s a perfect fit. “They found something they were really interested in, they talked about it, they found a book that related to it and they did an activity. It’s just a nice cycle.”

A “book addict” herself, Sue says the book club really does two things: it’s a place for kids who really like books, and a place to encourage others to get into them. “Initially it was hard getting them to focus - they all want to play and see each other, but no we’re prepared, there’s an activity and it’s engaging them.”

Riley Tracey has been with the club through three books, and liked the Easter egg hunt they did while reading “Hoot,” a book about endangered burrowing owls and a developer wanting to build a pancake house on top of their nests.

The kids have also liked the mummy-faced cookies for a treat while reading a mummy book, and they had a list of questions made up for Dempsey Corner author Allison Maher, who wrote their most recent read, “I, the Spy.”

They’ve also been able to incorporate their club activities with schoolwork: reading chosen books during silent reading at school, using them for book reports and using a growing book knowledge to even publish their own - three Cambridge students have written and published books through the school’s Swingset Press project on hockey, a grandfather and a puppy that are all now in the school’s library.