An update from our twenty-sixth Book Club meeting!
On April 24, in the first meeting of our new session, the Stone Soup Book Club discussed Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, by Grace Lin. In the book, a girl named Minli embarks on an adventure filled with mythical creatures and interwoven stories to find the Old Man in the Moon and change her family’s fortune.
After coming up with a few “ground rules” for our new session to make sure we all have the best time possible, we split up into breakout rooms of three and four to get to know each other. The prompt for these rooms was to talk about your favorite book, and it seems like there were a lot of similarities between people!
Then, back in the main group, we quickly discussed our general impressions of Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, before heading into two breakout rooms (led by myself and one of our Book Club facilitators, Lucy) to talk more in-depth. We had fascinating conversations about the characters, setting, plot, and theme of the book!
One of the most distinct things about Where the Mountain Meets the Moon are the illustrations featured throughout it. We agreed that the drawings helped us picture the scenes and the characters, and that their style fit in with the writing in the book. This prompted a conversation about art in books, and how art is utilized in stories. We looked at the art in books such as The Inquisitor’s Tale by Adam Gidwitz, Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, and The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick as examples.
Our last activity was regarding the presence of Chinese mythology in Where the Mountain Meets the Moon. We talked about how the mythology fit into the story, whether we like having mythology in stories, and what the best way to include mythology is: literally or interpretively.
Finally, we chose our next book for Book Club, which is listed below!
Our Next Book (to be discussed on May 29):
Look Both Ways: A Tale Told in Ten Blocks, by Jason Reynolds
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