The Second City of Ember Boys Book Club--Book Discussion, Punch-and-Flag Making, Martial Arts, and Belching

What a great time! We held the second meeting of our boys' book club last Saturday and three of our faithful reader guys were there--Ethan (aka Dragonslayer), Leland, and Alex. The subject was The People of Sparks, the second book in the City of Ember series. The fun started with a relay-race game between the Ember Messengers and the Sparks Roamers. Then we had snacks. That meant, of course, that the guys got to make their own punch:

Then we talked about The People of Sparks over snacks. Pretty good discussion, too. The group was divided over which book was better, about whether the mayor of Ember in the first book or Tick in the second book was worse, and the multiple meanings that names can have--like "Sparks." That could refer to the hope of new beginning or the sparks that start a fire of war. Or "Tick." That was the name of a really bad character in The People of Sparks but a "tick" is also a blood-sucking insect or the sound a time bomb makes before it goes off. Both of those are good descriptions of Tick's character. Here's a sample of our discussion:

Here's one of the highlights of the high-quality literary talk:

Now that's book reviewing!!!

Of course, no book club is complete without martial arts:

We're not this rowdy all the time, however, and our next activity was to create a flag, since the people of Sparks and Ember had their own flags in the second book. This flag was to symbolize both books and be something that the Ember and Sparks guys could cooperate on. Here's the finished product:

Here's a close-up:

The top says, "City of Ember Boys Book Club 2009." The left-hand side has a complete light bulb and people being peaceful to symbolize The People of Sparks. The right-hand side has a broken light bulb and war to symbolize The City of Ember. The middle combines both books with complete and broken light bulbs. And a vampire. I'm not sure what the vampire is for. Leland said it was there because it looked cool. The inscription underneath says, "Violence is better than Non-Violence." Ummm--are you sure about that, guys??? Wasn't the opposite the whole point of the second book? I told Leland that, when he gets older, he'll find out that violence is not better but he said, "Oh, no, I'm not talking about real life--I meant that it's better only in reading. It's more fun to read about people shooting and fighting each other." OK--I can't argue with that! Well said, Leland! Spoken like a true GUY!!!

The next meeting will be the first week in August and we'll do The Prophet of Yonwood, the third book. I've started it and it's good already! AND GUESS WHAT--it takes place in NORTH CAROLINA!! At least the first couple of chapters do.

Hope a bunch of you can come to the next meeting!!

Carl