Creating A Reading Community

Students, Faculty Meet Weekly To Talk About Books, Authors

Student members of Rogers Heritage Espirits Requis book club write out questions for New Zealand author Brian Falkner during a Skype visit on Friday, Feb. 1, 2013. Falkner is the second author this school year to visit the Heritage club through videoconferencing.

Student members of Rogers Heritage Espirits Requis book club write out questions for New Zealand author Brian Falkner during a Skype visit on Friday, Feb. 1, 2013. Falkner is the second author this school year to visit the Heritage club through videoconferencing.

Tuesday, February 5, 2013

— As the Skype connection rang in the background, two dozen Rogers Heritage High School students hunted for seats where they could see the screen and be seen by the video camera on the desk.

“G’day,” offered New Zealand author Brian Falkner.

The Espirits Requis book club read Falkner’s book, “The Project,” finishing it before Christmas. Falkner, using the Internet connection from his Houston hotel, was the guest speaker for a special Friday session.

He taught students “kia ora,” a traditional Maori greeting, and showed off his books not in print in the United States. Then, prompted by club members, Falkner talked about where he gets his ideas and how he writes.

“I think it almost goes hand-in-hand,” Falkner said. “If you want to be an author, you need to be a reader.”

It could be the motto for the book club. Not that they need one. “Mind required” is the tagline translation for the club’s Latin name. To appreciate a book, you need to bring your mind, said Brian Johnson, library media specialist at Heritage.

The group meets in the library and talks about books over lunch every Thursday.

Students in the Heritage club said they have a variety of reading interests: Dystopian romance, history, fast-paced action, inspirational poetry.

Talking to Falkner was cool, said Heritage senior Andrew Knight. Falkner’s ideas for the book aren’t in the prequel or written in the back of the book.

“It’s pretty cool about the author, him being on the screen in his own words,” Knight said.

Finding those hidden bits of author trivia are part of the reason he reads, said junior Cameron Johnson. Reading a book over and over again can provide a window to what the person who wrote it was thinking.

In the middle of a stressful semester, a little fiction can be a vacation, said junior Hayley Lemmond.

“It’s a get-away place,” she said.

Book clubs at Rogers High School meet for nine weeks and are student-created, said Melissa Cook, library media specialist. Teachers or administrators moderate the discussions and the groups usually have three to five students.

Students get English credit for participating in the groups. Book circulation and reading for enjoyment are on an upswing, Cook said. The groups help faculty and students partner in reading, said Principal Robert Moore, who is moderating one of the groups.

For the Heritage club, Johnson selects several titles at the beginning of the year and shows students book trailers promoting each before they vote on what they will read.

Visitors bring the points in the books home, like foster parents who talked about how hard it is for teenage boys to find a foster home when last year’s group read “Bruiser,” or a science discussion to go with Falkner’s book.

Students get three books as club members. They are finishing “Between Shades of Gray,” Ruta Sepetys’ story of a Lithuanian girl sent to a Siberian work camp set in the Soviet era. Next they will read “Little Brother” by Cory Doctorow. Funds to purchase the books come from a variety of areas: the parent-teacher organization, the Rogers Public Education Foundation, club members cleaning up after freshman football, Scholastic book points and $5 student dues.

Students keep the books they read, but often share them, Johnson said, building a community of readers. Sometimes they tell him their friends don’t like to read. That just means they haven’t found the right book, Johnson said.

“If we can rekindle that desire to read, that’s really valuable,” he said.

Web Watch

War Eagle Library

Find the War Eagle Library at media-center.hhs.rogersschools.net to watch book trailers or follow them on twitter.com/WarEagleLibrary

Web Watch

Brian Falkner

For more about author Brian Falkner go to www.brianfalkner.co.nz