February - The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls by Anissa Gray

We did something new with this months book - instead of just the usual discussion questions or a game, the dysfunction family in this book needed something more.

Each person was assigned a character and we held a family therapy session; each character needed to tell us about themselves, how they felt about other family members, and answer some questions about why they did the things they did. It was a fun way to get everyone's impressions about the different characters and, with six people representing characters, we were really able to get into each character's heads. As always, getting other people's impressions of the characters made each of us rethink the impressions we had formed. For example, Lisa S. didn't feel that Joe was at all remorseful about what he had done to Lillian growing up; yet, when ask to describe her character, Joe, in three words, Ann started with "remorseful." She was really able to see how hurt he had been by his childhood. In character, it was easier for each person to see what Gray meant by choosing this title, how each character was hungry to something specific and how each of them tried to satisfy that hunger.

We were happy to welcome a new member, Kathy. At least, we hope we didn't scare her off and that she'll join us again in March!

We are still searching for a new home base. This month we spent the meeting trying to talk over an unexpected trivia night. When the topic turned to music, we knew we couldn't compete against that round and had to call it a night. Thanks to Ann for hosting in March so we can have peace and quiet!

January - The Camel Bookmobile

Thanks to the weather, we had to reschedule our January meeting which was disappointing because there would have been nine of us, including a new member, at the originally scheduled meeting. Still, we had six of us and all but one of us had read the book.

For Ann, this one was a slow build but she ended up really liking it. Cheryl found it predictable. While it was tough to keep us on topic (what else is new?!), we had a good discussion about the motivations behind both Fiona and the group that set up the book mobile - was everyone really trying to make life better for the nomadic people of Kenya or were they doing it more for personal (corporate) good? What might they have done better to help the people of the village - books that were more helpful, other donations? Would those changes have been better accepted by the village elders? All of that brought up the discussion of whether or not you can truly retain the old ways while bringing in the new.

We had fun talking about how we would have liked the book to end or what we would have written if we had written an epilogue for the book. The book brought up some personal examples of ways family members and friends have served in other countries.

Perhaps the best part of the discussion was our ability to acknowledge other people's opinions and thoughts. It's one of the best things about this group of ladies - we may not always agree about a book or a character or a topic but we're always respectful and open to new thoughts.