For those of you looking for a good book to read this summer, I want to invite you to join my summer book club book! “Summer reading” looks a little bit different at my school now than it did when I went there. Everyone used to have required reading for their English class, but our school has recently made a shift in order to give students more choice in what they read during the summer in attempts to allow them to enjoy the reading a bit more.
Most honors and AP classes are given a list of books to choose from, and then everyone will sign up for a “book club” book to read over the summer. Each book club consists of one teacher or faculty member and a group of up to 20 or 25 students. This group will then meet several times over the course of the fall semester and discuss the book. There is a brief quiz during the first meeting, and then students have the opportunity to earn points back to their quiz based on their discussion.
This summer, I have chosen the book The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom. It is a fairly short book (4 hours and 37 minutes according to the audiobook), and about 190 pages total. But it is a book FULL of important lessons and meaning that I think we all could benefit from learning.
Photo by Bence Balla-Schottner on Unsplash
This book is seriously AMAZING. I read this book in one sitting on a Saturday afternoon in Kentucky, and the ending made me WEEP. (Weep in a good way, though). It will make you rethink the way you interact with people and will show you a beautiful picture of the impact that your life can and does have on others.
One of the things that intimidates people the most about reading is the time that it takes to read. It always seems daunting at first when you pick up a book and see how many pages it is. That is why I always try to give suggestions for reading schedules. Below are some of the tips and strategies I gave to my book club for the summer:
Some reading tips and strategies:
If you read 1 person each day, you will complete the book in 6 days (intro/set up as one section, and then the five people)
If you read 10 pages a day, you will complete the book in 19 days.
If you read 10 minutes a day, you will complete this book in about 28 days.
If you want to read 1 chapter a day, you will complete this book in 36 days (don't worry, they are really short chapters/sections).
Then I encourage people to pick a strategy that works best for them and their needs or abilities! These are also really simple strategies that can be applied to any book you are reading this summer. Everyone has 10 minutes a day to spare (and if you don’t, then I would make the argument that you are way too busy!).
Below is a link to purchase the book from Amazon, and here is the blurb from Amazon to give you a brief summary of the book: "Eddie is a wounded war veteran, an old man who has lived, in his mind, an uninspired life. His job is fixing rides at a seaside amusement park. On his 83rd birthday, a tragic accident kills him, as he tries to save a little girl from a falling cart. He awakes in the afterlife, where he learns that heaven is not a destination. It's a place where your life is explained to you by five people, some of whom you knew, others who may have been strangers. One by one, from childhood to soldier to old age, Eddie's five people revisit their connections to him on earth, illuminating the mysteries of his 'meaningless' life, and revealing the haunting secret behind the eternal question: 'Why was I here?'"
You can purchase the book from Amazon here.
*Also, check your local second hand book store to see if they have copies! I found a hardback copy at my local store for only $6.00!
If you decide to read along (or even if you have already read the book), leave me a comment below so we can discuss your thoughts and questions together!