Matilda Book Club (Tillys)
This interview is with Melissa Bratland from the Matilda Book Club (Tillys) of Spring Grove, MN. Read on to learn more about this group.
Q: Does your group have a name and/or a theme? How long has your group been in existence?
A. The name of our book club is the Matilda Book Club --- Tillys for short. We took our name from the Roald Dahl young adult book about a little girl who loves to read. We will celebrate being together 7 years in November of this year --- we held our first meeting in 1996.
Q: How many members do you have? How many men, how many women? What age are most of your members?
A. We currently have 12 members --- one of our beloved members just moved to Tennessee. Our membership has stayed pretty constant from the beginning --- no one wants to leave once they join! We are all women, and our ages range from 36 to mid 60's. I am the youngest, and am often referred to as "the baby of the group." The majority of us are teachers and school staff, with a librarian, rare book seller, professor, and inn manager thrown in.
Q: How often do you meet? Where do you meet?
A. We meet monthly, and we take turns meeting at our homes. We are very flexible though, and occasionally we will skip a month if everyone is too busy. In August, we always plan an outing of some sort --- lunch and book discussion. We try to choose places that the majority of us have not been to.
Q: Do you eat at your meetings? What do you eat? Who brings the food?
A. Of course we eat! That is an important part of getting together for us. However, one of our rules has always been that we don't fuss about food or our homes. We usually have either a dessert or a selection of munchies, coffee, tea or iced tea. Occasionally we eat food based on the book we are reading. The hostess provides the food at her home.
Q: Who leads the discussion? Do you use reading group guides?
A. We have no set leaders for our discussions. Since we are predominantly educators, we have no problem coming up with thought-provoking questions most of the time, since we do it everyday! We do use reading guides if they are available, and someone will throw out a question from the guide that they find interesting.
Q: What kind of books do you read?
A. We try very hard to read a wide variety --- I don't think there is a category we haven't hit. We mostly read fiction, with bestsellers, classics, fantasy, young adult fiction, mysteries, biography and nonfiction thrown in. For example, this summer we are reading Zoya's Story by Zoya, Summerland by Michael Chabon, Tell No One by Harlan Coben, and The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown.
Q: How do you choose your books? Do you choose one new book at each meeting, or do you choose the books for a number of meetings ahead of time?
A. This is still an evolving process for us! Most of the time, several people suggest possibilities, and the rest decide if it sounds good or not. At other times, we have all brought a suggestion, given a little synopsis on each, and used a point system to vote. We usually try to have 2 or 3 books lined up ahead of time, so everyone has a chance to get the books in plenty of time. Once we did 6 months in advance, but we found that better books came up that we wanted to read more than our original choices, so we quit choosing books that far in advance.
Q: What are some of the best discussions or favorite books the group has read?
A. Since we are nearing having read 75 books, this is a tough question. Some of our best discussion books have not necessarily been our favorite books either! Some of our best discussion books have been The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell, The Giverby Lois Lowry, The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver, Quincunxby Charles Palliser, Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner, Peace Like a River by Leif Enger, and Pope Joan by Donna Woolfolk Cross. Some of our favorites have been The Poisonwood Bible, The Sparrow, Pope Joan, Peace Like a River, A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving, Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner, Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett, and The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd.
Something funny that always seems to happen is that people will think they don't like a book much, until we start discussing it. Inevitably, the final rating of the book goes up at least a point, often more, just from discussing it.
Q: How do you keep things fun?
A. We have fun, no matter what! There are many of us who will say the book club is the highlight of our month, and we really look forward to it! Everyone can express an opinion without feeling silly or looked down upon, or if you want to just listen, that is great too. We laugh A LOT, and have developed a lot of inside jokes from things that have happened or books that we have read.
Our yearly trip in August is always a hightlight. One of our most memorable was when we read Postville by Stephen G. Bloom. As it happens, the actual town of Postville is less than an hour from us, so we went there for our outing. We drove around the town looking for places mentioned in the book, and had lunch at a wonderful kosher deli --- Jacob's Market. It was run by a Hasidic Jewish woman, and we had a wonderful conversation with her about the book and the town's reaction. We also had fabulous food that many of us had never eaten before.
Q: What advice would you give to other reading groups?
A. We really like to read from a variety of genres --- we think it keeps it interesting. Don't overlook young adult fiction --- there are some absolutely wonderful novels that we have really loved and had super discussions about. Some examples are The Giverand Gathering Blue by Lois Lowry, Harris and Me by Gary Paulsen, Walk Two Moonsby Sharon Creech, and Holes by Louis Sachar.
Another thing we are good at is being open and accepting of everyone and their opinions. I think that comes from being good friends besides just members of a reading group. We can disagree or agree --- it doesn't matter and we know we are free to express what we want.
Q: Do you have any horror stories, amusing anecdotes, or other special tales to tell?
A. Something that is very special to us is that out of a group of people getting together to discuss books has developed deep friendships and a support network that many of us really depend on. In a time of need, we know that our book club members will be there and help in any way we can --- whether that is with listening ears and shoulders to lean on, thoughts and prayers, moving boxes, or bringing meals.
A horror story that we can now laugh about happened on our trip to Postville. One of our members is in a wheelchair, and needed a restroom. We searched the town high and low looking for a handicapped bathroom for her to use. We finally ended up at a nursing home --- the ONLY place that actually had a TRUE handicap-accessible bathroom. This really opened our eyes to something we all take for granted. Since then, we have all become much more aware of the fact that this is really a problem. The first question we ask before we plan any trip now is, "Are you handicap-accessible to someone in a wheelchair, including your bathroom?"
Q: Is there anything else unique or noteworthy about your group that you would like to share?
A. At the end of our discussions, we always rate the book we read on a scale of 1 to 10 --- 1 being terrible and 10 being the best. This is always fun to see what everyone thinks of a book. As I said earlier, a lot of times the rating goes up after discussion! I think we have only had two books that received a unanimous 10 rating --- The Poisonwood Bibleand Peace Like a River.
Another neat thing we do is we always go around and share what we have read the past month. I write down all the titles and authors and get a list to everyone. That way, we always have a list of books we can choose from if we need something to read. Since some people read many books a month, and may read things others of us don't, we get a wide range of titles to choose from. This will often lead to a choice we will read in book club! It is also great to have the town and school librarians in our group --- we always hear about the newest and noteworthy books from them!
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