YA & MG Postal Book Clubs

Recently I've been listening to the Books on the Nightstand podcast archives. In one of the episodes the podcasters (and book reps), Michael Kindness and Ann Kingman, discuss a Postal Book Club Ann is participating in. Of course, my interest was piqued. 

Here's the thing: I used to participate in book clubs all the time in my hometown. But, since I've moved to Traverse City, I haven't found one to join. Then I realized that the book blogging community is already one big club, so why not form some kind of online book club. That said, I feel like so many of the online book clubs on Goodreads and Twitter never work into my schedule well... Which is why the Postal Book Club appeals to me.

Anne Kingman explains how Postal Book Club's work here, but I've also excerpted bits from her explanation below. In short, it's quite similar to the idea of an arc tour - which I think still happen? - except for the fact that there are multiple books traveling and the participants write their thoughts down in a notebook, which travels which each book.

Here's what we do:

--Pick out a book  and a notebook to record your thoughts about the book.

--I was thinking it might be fun to put a little bio about yourself on the first page of the notebook. If you are not comfortable with that, it is OK.

--Read the book, then record what you think about the book in the notebook. [...] I don't think we should worry too much about spoilers because we can always choose to review the notebook comments after we have read the book.

--Mail the book and notebook to your designated person on or about January 31st.

--Receive your book! And repeat the process.

Because I feel like most YA and MG reads more quickly than adult fiction, some of the details of Kingman's instructions didn't really apply. I would be comfortable having a month with one book and notebook before passing it on to the next person, whereas the original concept gave 2 or 3 months I think. Keep in mind that, the way this works, you'll be reading a book for the book club every month, then sending it on to the next person. It'll be a circular sharing of books, so the book you choose will eventually land back on your doorstep a few months down the line.

Depending on how many people are interested in participating, I'm open to having more than one book club. We could create book clubs for different genres within YA and MG, but I personally like the idea of it being open to anything within the reading level - it will expand everyone's horizons! Also, it might be cool to leave it open to both already published and upcoming titles if anyone has arcs that they want to send around. It would be whatever book you want to share with your fellow book club participants and will make for interesting journals entries.

Are you game? 

If you're interested in participating in a Postal Book Club, leave a comment with your email and which type you'd like to participate in  - YA, MG, or both! If you have a question because I explained things badly in my post, feel free to leave a comment as well. I feel like I made things more confusing than I needed to!