Creek staff start boy-centric book club

Lunch and recess time at Prairie Creek Intermediate School looked a bit different from normal on April 16. For starters, there was a reaping.

What can you expect when a school's stages its own Hunger Games?

Of course, Wednesday's event was all in fun. In celebration of National School Library Week, members of Prairie Creek Guys Read hosted a session of activities themed around Suzanne Collins' popular young adult fiction series turned filmed franchise.

'We have a lot of kids who if they find a series they like - and Hunger Games is that series - they'll read all the books,” said Marcus Hora, a fifth-grade teacher at the school, who estimated that 80 students attended the gathering.

Hora, along with teacher librarian Ernie Cox, leads Prairie Creek Guys Read. The book club is for fifth- and sixth-grade boys and modeled from author Jon Scieszka's national Guys Read movement to encourage young men to enjoy reading and do so actively as they age.

Hora and Cox got the idea to start the club, which began meeting in summer 2013, after seeing parent survey responses showing that they wanted help with getting their sons to read.

The group meets monthly and last summer's activities included going out for ice cream or eating pizza, all while sharing about the books they've read and anything else going on in their lives. There is no cost to join the club, which is funded out of the school's budget.

'(We're) giving guys a way to get together and talk about books that looks different than what they've seen before,” Cox said.

Hora said the results are 'reading experiences that are adultlike and very authentic.”

Cox has been a librarian for nine years and is in his third year at Creek. He said that he's witnessed a decline in boys' reading interest as they get older and said many reasons, such as a lack of time as social opportunities become more accessible, are responsible.

Hora and Cox chose the books for the first meeting. They continue to offer suggestions but since then the group members have taken the responsibility of endorsing novels, which they then vote on, to read for the subsequent meeting.

'We've had a lot of passionate arguments, boys pounding on tables almost, trying to get other boys to vote for their book,” Hora said.

By allowing the young men - the group has grown to between 20 and 30 members, Hora estimated - to select the books, Cox said it has kept them engaged. He's heard concerns from parents and teachers that the students will pick contemporary or more frivolous works at the expense of the classics, but Cox said Prairie Creek's guys have opted for Newbery Medal winners (referring to the award given annually to America's best children's literature).

'If they don't have choice, we won't have the engagement, the motivation, the interest that they could,” he said.

Cox and Hora also ask the young readers about which books and movies they like, as a way to get ideas about potential future selections. Cox said that he wants to incorporate the boys' love of popular culture as opposed to rejecting it.

Some members of the group ended up reading 'Holes” by Louis Sachar, a Newbery winner, because they'd seen the movie. Cox said that led to some meaningful intellectual exchanges between the young men.

'One of the essential things we know that kids need in order to be academically successful is the skill to compare and contrast,” he said. 'That is the kind of academic conversation we want them to be able to have and we got there through choice.”

The guys in Guys Read are just having fun reading, talking and helping to plan events like the Hunger Games day which was open to all Prairie Creek students - boys and girls. This inclusive idea of reading means that Cox and Hora are in the process of responding to requests to form a Prairie Creek Girls Read Club for the next school year.

'Everybody is nice and likes to read,” said fifth-grader Grant Beach, who is looking forward to this summer's activities, about Prairie Creek Guys Read. 'It's nice to discuss books.”

Beach has always liked to read but said he joined the club last summer to make friends before he started his new school.

Hora and Cox gave credit to Principal Sue Skala for allowing them to form the group and supporting it financially. This summer, they're hoping to read books that have to do with baseball and then talk about them when they attend a Cedar Rapids Kernels game.

Cox is very conscious that he and Hora suggest books of all kinds instead of just sports or science fiction, genres typically tied to boys. Cox said that he's very purposeful in avoiding those stereotypes.

'We try to get to this idea that you, as a reader, can bring experiences to this book,” he said. 'We don't want to get to the notion that there's only one kind of book for guys.”

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