Happy Monday, y’all!  I can’t believe it’s already August, but it is… and as it is the first Monday of the month, today I am announcing our book selection for Mom’s Book Nook, our virtual book club, co-hosted by Laura at Sunny Day Family.  We had a great discussion last week via our first Facebook event, and can’t wait to have you all join us for another great read this month!

Mom’s Book Nook – A Virtual Book Club

Last month’s book was Judy Blume’s latest, In the Unlikely Event.  Based on three plane crashes that actually occurred in Elizabeth, New Jersey in the 1950s during Blume’s youth, the book tells of the life experiences of families and a town impacted by the crashes.

There is a wide cast of characters, and it is often difficult to keep up with them all and their inter-connections.  But at the center of the complexities, Blume conveys life experiences and themes that span generations.  From the innocence of your first love, to the bond of childhood friendship, to more complex experiences like single parenting, adultery, and divorce.  I definitely enjoyed the book, I just wish it had included a cast of characters and maybe even a town map for reference up front!

August 2015 Book

After getting a great list of recommendations from our discussion participants last week, Laura and I narrowed the list down to one… the book for this month is Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline.  Since we got some feedback that many readers rely on the library for book club choices, and brand new books come with lengthy waiting lists, we tried to pick one that has been around for a bit!

About the Book

Based in Maine, Penobscot Indian Molly Ayer is close to “aging out” out of the foster care system. A community service position helping an elderly woman clean out her home is the only thing keeping Molly out of juvie and worse…

As she helps Vivian sort through her possessions and memories, Molly learns that she and Vivian aren’t as different as they seem to be. A young Irish immigrant orphaned in New York City, Vivian was put on a train to the Midwest with hundreds of other children whose destinies would be determined by luck and chance.

About the Author

Christina Baker Kline was born in Cambridge, England, and raised there as well as in the American South and Maine. She is the author of five novels: Orphan Train, Bird in Hand, The Way Life Should Be, Desire Lines, and Sweet Water. She is co-editor, with Anne Burt, of About Face: Women Write about What They See When They Look in the Mirror and co-author, with Christina L. Baker, of The Conversation Begins: Mothers and Daughters Talk about Living Feminism.

She has edited three other anthologies: Child of Mine, Room to Grow, and Always Too Soon. Writer-in-Residence at Fordham University from 2007 to 2011, Kline has also taught literature and creative writing at Yale, NYU, UVA, and Drew University. A graduate of Yale, Cambridge University, and the University of Virginia, where she was a Hoyns Fellow in Fiction Writing, Kline is a recipient of a Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation Fellowship and several research fellowships, and has been a Writer-in-Residence at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. Kline lives with her husband and three sons in Montclair, New Jersey.

Monthly Mom’s Book Nook Discussion and Giveaway

We will hold a live discussion via Facebook event on the last Monday of the month, August 31st, at 9pm ET.  Click here to join! Last month’s discussion was great fun, and we look forward to having you all join us again!  We loved chatting with you, got some great book recommendations, and one lucky participant won a $10 Amazon gift card to buy a new book!

We are also now on Goodreads!  See all the books we’ve already read, what we thought, and invite your friends to read along.

Thanks for joining us for another month of great reads, and we look forward to more awesome book banter.  If you can’t make the live discussion, feel free to leave your comments, feedback or book recommendations in the comments below or on the Facebook event page!