Last week we held our first reading group event – you can read Kate’s summary of the evening here – during which we discussed Wonder, by R.J. Palacio. We’re already planning our second event in July, and we’d like to hear from you!
This time we’ll be reading A Monster Calls, written by Patrick Ness (and inspired by an idea by the late Siobhan Dowd) – an incredibly moving, powerful story, and the first book ever to win both the Carnegie and Kate Greenaway medals. We’ll be partnering with The Guardian once again, and you’ll be able to join in with the discussion online at a page of their website and on Twitter with the #NCGKids hashtag.
The event will take place on July 11, starting at 6.30pm, and the group here in London (at our office) is almost full, but if you’d like to attend, send an email to [email protected] and we’ll try to fit in as many people as possible! If we can’t save a place for you this time, we can, if you’d like, keep you on our waiting list for cancellations and add you to our mailing list for future events – and we’d love for you to join in online, at The Guardian’s page or with the Twitter hashtag.
Once again we’ve prepared a few discussion points to get you thinking in advance – here’s some of what we might talk about:
1) Is this book a work of fantasy?
2) Who goes on the furthest emotional journey?
3) What do you think the relationships other than that between Connor and the Monster add to the novel?
4) Does Connor ever lose your sympathy?
5) Are the illustrations necessary?
If you have other areas you’d like to discuss, or questions you’d like to raise, do please leave a comment below. And if you’ve not yet read A Monster Calls, you can order it from The Guardian Bookshop here.
