Part of Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life

I’m looking across the circle at family book club. Moms and dads and their kids are sitting together, and we are sharing out to the whole group.

The kids are quiet, shy in the way kids get when it’s evening and they are with their parents and teachers and principal, all in the school library.

A third-grader seems to want to say something, but she puts her head down, shoulders up, not sure if she wants to speak. Her mom smiles at her, encouraging.

There’s something about the exchange that takes me briefly back in time.

My daughter and I went to a book club together – a Mothers and daughters book club. We met at the library every so often. We talked about a book we had read, did a craft.

We didn’t always finish the book we were supposed to read, but we went, we did the craft, we talked.

I don’t remember the books, I have a sliver of memory of one or two of the crafts.

But, I can picture the photograph of us laughing during one of those book clubs – it hangs in my parent’s house. And, I remember the feeling: sitting next to my young daughter, encouraging her to speak.