Hampden Meadows Family Book Club
The Secret Science Alliance & the Copycat Crook
The Secret Science Alliance and the Copycat Crook by Eleanor Davis (2009)
Family Book Club - Tuesday, February 24, 2015
Here's a breakdown of the book club...
Family Book Club Agenda
Warm Up Activity
Ice breaker Activity
Fun Guessing Game
Book Discussion
One mom said, "When I first heard graphic novel I thought graphic meant it would be inappropriate for kids. My husband and daughter laughed at me. I was surprised at how much I liked it. I wasn't prepared to like it this much."
The book got a very good response from kids and parents. Some adults said it was more difficult to read a graphic novel because they weren't sure which way their eyes were supposed to go. Some reported that the pages were visually overwhelming to take in at times. Some reported that the tiny font was hard to read with 40-something eyes! Yet everyone agreed that they really enjoyed it. A mom commented, "It was packed with great vocabulary."
We asked the children if this book had more visuals than typical graphic novels they read. The children said this book didn't have more visuals but it had more words than they were used to with graphic novels.
One father said he is a comic book reader to this day. One mom said reading this reminded her of how much she loved reading comic books as a kid. One mom said it used to be much easier to buy comic books at magazine stands.
When we talked about the characters we liked we got some interesting responses.
A student said, "I like Julian because he is trying to hide that he's a math and science whiz."
One student said, "I like Greta because of her invention of the eyes in the back of her head."
One student said, "I liked Julian's sister because she wore a mustache." This threw everyone for a loop because most of us hadn't noticed that detail. Another student told us what page to turn to and, sure enough, we saw Julian's little sister with a mustache on her face. It really was a true testament to how graphic novel readers pore over all the small details included on the page!
One mom said, "I usually fly through chapter books. I thought the inventions were good to stop and digest. It made me slow down my reading."
We had a whip around share at the end where everyone briefly made a comment about the book. One dad said about the characters, "Everyone is not what they seem." A student said, "I think they (by they I think she meant Eleanor Davis) should make a sequel. In the end the submarine makes me wonder about a sequel." One adult wondered, "It was more work for me to read a graphic novel. I wonder if students who are more likely to read graphic novels find chapter books to be more work to read." Another added, "To tag onto that, I wonder if this generation of children who have been on screens since an early age are more likely to want to read graphic novels."
We ended by explaining that it was a historic year for the American Library Association because they just awarded their first Newbery Honor to Cece Bell's memoir graphic novel El Deafo.
It's pretty powerful to get adults and students in one room discussing a book. Mr. Sangiuliano thanked parents for being such great literary role models for their children. We plan to have one more family book club before the end of the school year.