Great book club recommendations
Heritage Homeschoolers
Book Club
I often speak affectionately of the book club I launched in 2017 for our local suburban Atlanta homeschool support group. People are always asking to see what we’re reading, so I thought it would be fun to keep a running list of our monthly selections here.
If you’re interested in starting a book club for your homeschool group or within your school or community, check out this post on How to Start a Culturally-Rich Book Club.
We have six age-based groups within our book club, and for the years that show the books by month, the strips of books are listed in age order: Littles (4-6 years old), Explorers (6-8 years old), Juniors (8-9 years old),Tweeners (9-10 years old), Middle Schoolers (11-13 years old), Teens (13-15 years old) – The age overlap is intended to allow our parents placement flexibility based on social readiness – not reading ability.
Please note: We’ve added groups over the years, so we don’t have as much history for some of the ages. Books are selected by the parents leading each group (with recommendations and feedback from the children).
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Enjoy!
2024-2025 Book Club Year
We do not have a teen group this year, and the middle schoolers are voting on their books. Their first one is My Life as an Ice Cream Sandwich by Ibi Zoboi. I will add their other selections soon.
Littles (4-5 years old), Pre-K and Kinder
Explorers (6-8 years old), 1st-2nd grade
Juniors (8-10 years old), 3rd-4th grade
The Great Cake Mystery: Precious Ramotswe s Very First Case (Precious Ramotswe Mysteries for Young Readers)
Tweeners (9-11 years old), 4th-5th grade
Middle Schoolers (11-13 years old, 6th-8th grade) – Coming Soon!
2023-2024 Book Club Year
I’m thrilled to announce that the High School teen book club is back this year! All other groups remain the same.
Middle Schoolers (11-13 years old, 6th-8th grade)
Tweeners (9-11 years old), 4th-5th grade
This group is reading more than one book in some months, so they have 11 books scheduled for the school year.
Littles (4-5 years old), Pre-K and Kinder
2022-2023 Book Club Year
The Tweeners group is a new addition for this year, so you won’t find prior history under that name. In the past, the Juniors covered 3rd-5th grades. As of right now, we don’t have enough interested high schoolers to offer the teen book club this year.
Middle Schoolers (11-13 years old, 6th-8th grade)
Tweeners (9-11 years old), 4th-5th grade
Juniors (8-10 years old), 3rd-4th grade [Please note: Life of a Firefly is a good story, but we ended up having to switch to a “You Choose” format during the month due to the book’s strong language and mature themes.]
Explorers (6-8 years old), 1st-2nd grade
Littles (4-5 years old), Pre-K and Kinder
2021-2022 Book Club Year
Books are listed by age group this year. We released our full booklist to parents in the beginning of the year rather than announcing monthly. This will help families plan, search for used books, or reserve books at the library ahead of time.
Teens (14-17 years old)
Middle Schoolers (11-13 years old)
Juniors GIRLS (8-10 years old)
Juniors BOYS (8-10 years old)
Explorers (6-7 years old)
Littles (4-5 years old)
2020-2021 Book Club Year
Books are listed by month, in age order [Littles, Explores, Juniors, Middle Schoolers, Teens]. The Explorers (6-8 years old) launched this school year, so you won’t see 2017-2020 history for that age group down below.
May 2021 (Teens are still reading the April book.)
April 2021
March 2021 (Teens are still reading February book)
February 2021 (We took January off)
December 2020 (Book club meeting guide for The Toothpaste Millionare) Teens are still reading the November book.
November 2020 (Book club meeting guide for Ansley’s Big Bake Off)
October 2020 (Book club meeting guide for Ways to Make Sunshine) Teens are still reading the September book.
September 2020 (Book club meeting guide for Clubhouse Mysteries)
2017-2020 Past Books: Juniors (8-10 years old)
We are currently running our groups with an adult lead, but pre-COVID, the Juniors typically took turns leading a monthly meeting, and they chose their own books. Because of this, there is a fairly wide range of reading levels represented across the books and over the years. And although our book club groups are usually co-ed, this particular group just happened to have been comprised of all girls for most years, and you’ll see their interests reflected in the titles.
2017-2020 Past Books: Middle School (11-13 year olds)
For this age group, the children typically recommend and vote on their books, so the types of books being covered reflect the preferences of the students involved during any given year. This is currently a co-ed group, but some years (when we have enough participating boys), the group has been split up into boys and girls. The reading levels of these books also cover a range, but they’re not as variable as the Juniors group.
2017-2020 Past Books: Littles (ages 3-5)
This group hasn’t existed as long as the Juniors and Middle School groups, so there is a smaller list.
