Book club kits give teachers, homeschoolers flexibility

Elkhart Public Library now offers book club kits to keep learning accessible for teachers and homeschoolers.

The kits are available to place a hold on in the library’s online catalog and can be picked up at any library location. Each bag includes 15 copies of the book and may be checked out for 90 days.

“The service is important for the library to provide because when reading is a social experience, kids are more likely to enjoy reading,” says Allison McLean, head of the children’s department. “One of the best ways to do that is for everyone to read the same book. That requires a lot of copies of books.”

Allison says the idea came after a teacher asked to get books for a book club. Instead of making teachers wait for books to come through interlibrary loan, EPL can have a dozen books available at once. The book-only kits give teachers the freedom and flexibility to build their own lesson plans or discussion guides.

Currently, EPL has 12 titles in the juvenile fiction and young adult fiction genres available as book club kits.

“Restart” by Gordon Korman
“Long Way Down” by Jason Reynolds
“Darkroom” by K. R. Alexander
“Borrow my Heart” by Kasie West
“Mosquitoland” by David Arnold
“I’d Tell You I Love you but then I’d Have to Kill” You By Ally Carter 
“Ghost” by Jason Reynolds
“Wait till Helen Comes” by Mary Downing Hahn
Slugfest by Gordon Korman
“Number the Stars” by Lois Lowry 
“Lines of Courage” by Jennifer A. Nielson
“Hatchet” by Gary Paulsen

Plans to add more titles, including adult book club kits, are being explored.