SCSD High School Students Enjoy Virtual Book Club

High school librarians have been working together this year, providing technical assistance and other resources to SCSD students and families during remote and hybrid learning. Through those partnerships, they decided: let’s find something fun and student-led that allows students to interact virtually in a social, not academic way… while still supporting and strengthening their academic skills.
 
With many of the high schools hosting book clubs in non-pandemic times, they decided to use a combination of Canvas discussions and activities and Teams meetings to host a high school virtual book club! Including students from Nottingham, Henninger, ITC and PSLA at Fowler (Corcoran students have already started Project Lit as a book club), the group began meeting virtually in January, discussing the book "Children Of Blood and Bone" by Tomi Adeyemi, which was provided by the District either as an eBook, audiobook or in hard copy, based on student preference.
 
ITC sophomore Sammi McGiveron said that last school year, the ITC book club was one of her favorite times of the week.
 
“I enjoyed having a safe space to hang out with my friends and [school librarian] Mr. Sohoski,” Sammi explained. “I joined the virtual book club this year with my friends to have the opportunity to be exposed to new stories and to be able to talk about them. With our current situation, I have so much gratitude toward our librarians for creating a similar environment.”
 
She said as the group started reading the first book, she already enjoyed the new aspect of virtually meeting students and staff from across the SCSD.
 
“My personal favorite part of a book is the characters,” Sammi said. “Reading about their experiences and seeing their personalities is interesting to me. Tomi spoke about wanting to write a fantasy type story about people of color, because there aren't many of those out there. I love that aspect of it! It's been nice having a place to interact with other book lovers, especially when there isn't much socializing at all during the pandemic. Being able to meet other SCSD students and librarians is an added bonus.”
 
The group plans to attend the virtual Rochester Teen Book Festival in May. What a great way to help keep students connected and engaged!