A defining characteristic of this school year has been the addition of ACE bell, designed to encourage more reading built into the school day. Recently, another addition to promote reading, this time student-driven, is the resurrection of SHS’ book club.
The club’s first meeting took place Tuesday April 12 in room 110. The renewal of the club is headed by sophomores Ji-in Woo, Jenna Bao, and Stephanie Hong with Mr. Breen Reardon as the sponsoring teacher.
Woo said, “In language arts class we did a lot of book discussion this year, and I really enjoyed it. I felt like a book club is something every school should have and decided to restart the club at Sycamore.”
The club’s will act as a typical book club would by reading a book together and meeting to discuss and eat.
Woo said, “Reading on your own is great, but the discussions that book clubs offer are a whole different experience. You get to see the perspectives of others reading the same text and further develop your own thoughts. Plus, at book club you get free food.”
The agenda for the first meeting consisted of voting for the club’s first book of the year out of the four nominated books of multiple genres: “The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat” by Oliver Sacks, “An Ember in the Ashes” by Sabaa Tahir, “The Outsiders” by S.E. Hilton, and “The Count of Monte Cristo” by Alexandre Dumas.
After discussion and voting the group settled on “The Count of Monte Cristo.”
Woo said, “I’m very excited! I’ve read [the book] before during my freshman year… and I absolutely loved it. It’s definitely one of my favorite classics now. I think we’ll all have a lot of fun with it.”
While not everyone may be familiar with the genre of the chosen book the group’s leaders hope to encourage members to give different stories a chance.
It is not too late to join the club; the next meeting will take place Tuesday April 26. One can contact Reardon for details.