Stacked Shelves

Several months ago, I was approached by a favorite mom: She asked if I would start a book club. Her daughters are good readers and she thought they’d enjoy a book club at the library. She even volunteered to run it, if I didn’t want to. But of course, I did want to. If I had to pick a group of kids to work with, it would be school-aged children. Unfortunately, these kids are often too busy to come to the library other than to get books to complete assignments. So, while I really wanted to start a book club, I had to make sure my efforts wouldn’t be in vain. I decided to try a “direct marketing” approach. I went through two years of summer reading lists, selecting kids who were active in summer reading and at the grade level I choose. I figure, I love getting things in the mail, so let me send each of these kids an invitation to join. And the results were terrific! I sent out 30 “you’re invited” flyers and about 16 kids responded. Other kids picked up the same flyer at the libr