Meeting Wrap-Up: Punished by David Lubar

The Book Buddies Book Club met this past Monday for our end-of-year party and to discuss our final book, Punished! by David Lubar. It was a fantastic meeting with a great turnout - we had 10 book club members present!

We had a great discussion about word play and about our new friends, anagrams, oxymorons and palindromes. Some of us were familiar with these terms before Punished! but for others they were brand new! I asked everyone about the statement Professor Wordsworth made to Logan when they first met in the library: "Words aren't always enough." (p14) Everyone had ideas about this but we agreed that one example to consider is saying you are sorry. Sometimes saying sorry isn't always enough and it does not necessarily mean that you are being sincere.

We talked about puns and why everyone groans (especially Logan's teacher, Mr. Vernack) when Logan makes a pun. We talked about the three quests and how Logan was able to solve them.

Overall, our club members really liked Punished! and would recommend it to their friends. We found it funny AND educational, a great combination.

Following our discussion, I put everyone's newfound knowledge to the test with an activity packet of oxymorons, anagrams and palindromes. Everyone did very well solving the riddles and proved themselves masters of language!

To celebrate our second year of Book Buddies, we had cake and ice cream which everyone enjoyed. We talked about what kinds of books we might want to read next year and popular choices included the Chronicles of Narnia series (specifically The Magician's Nephew) and the Spiderwick Chronicles. You'll have to stay tuned to see what books we take on next year!

It was a great meeting and I will miss everyone over the summer. Thank you for a terrific year!