Books and Beer Club February 2016

I'm on a restricted carb diet so
opted for red wine instead of
beer at last night's meeting.
It's allowed.

We had a very low turnout for last night's Books and Beer Club meeting to discuss The Child Called "It" by Dave Pelzer. I never really have expectations of how many people will attend any given book club meeting. Last night there were five of us.

A great show of gratitude goes out to Denise for letting us move inside for our discussion last night. I guess that was made easier since there were only 5 of us there to discuss. It was mighty chilly in the outside night air, with the wind making the 62 degree temperature feel that much lower.

We started our meeting with our resident props provider, Prish. She creates props to bring out the key points of whatever book we're discussing. Her "dirty diaper" and the story that went along with its creation were hysterical. Suffice to say that was one prop that looked very realistic. Prish also came to the meeting bearing peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and carrots, two of the foods that Dave's mother would feed Dave... when she was in the mood to feed Dave. (I'm 100% sure that Dave's mother did not serve him the gourmet type of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches that we enjoyed last night.)

Another shout out of appreciation goes to Jen, a professional counselor who deals with abused children all the time as her career. Whenever I'd ask why, she'd be able to give me some idea of why. My biggest why after reading the book was "Why wouldn't the non-abusive parent do everything in his or her power to protect a child he or she sees being abused by the other parent?" We made comparisons about how society dealt with child abuse back in the 70s to how it's dealt with today. Laws have changed, mandatory reporting has been introduced. Some professionals receive proper training in how to recognize abuse. That didn't happen during Dave's childhood.

As typical, our discussion expanded beyond the book and into our own personal lives. Every reader reads a book with his or her own life experiences. As a result, several different readers can get different things and walk away with different understandings of the same book. We needed to share experiences to come to a more collective sense of the book and of the author's purpose.

Of the five people at the meeting, two had only read the first book, the assigned book for the month. Two of us had read two books in the trilogy. And one member was nearly done with the third book in the series which she felt did go farther in answering a lot more of the questions brought up in the first and second book. I might have to put Dave Pelzer's third book in his trilogy back on my "to be read" list.

Next month, March, is our fantasy month. We'll be reading The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss. I came home and got this book on my holds list at the library. I'm #3 on the list, the book is 662 pages long. I think I might need to look for another source for the book.