1) How do you choose your book?

We actually don't choose a specific book – because we have students in our book group with so many ages and different tastes, we believe that there is nothing more irritating than being forced to read a book which we are not all as a group particularly interested in. What we do is bring along the book we are currently reading. This creates more engaging and spirited discussions, and also helps recommend new authors because of what other members have to say. It also means anyone can join in at any point in the year!
Millennium RIOT Readers

We don't aim to read the same book, partly because we no longer have the money to buy sets of books, partly because there's a wide range of reading ability and book preferences in the group.
Golden Morning Reading Group

We look at the front cover and see if it looks exciting. We read the blurb and look at some of the pages inside. We look at who wrote the book. We look at the authors and see if there is someone who has written other books that we like. We ask friends and family and listen to recommendations. We might look online. We might get a book of a film.
Cedar Readers

2) What is the most popular thing you do in your group?

The most popular are the book discussions. We get very animated, especially if someone criticises our favourite books/characters and it is often these heated debates which carry on forever, making us go well over finishing time and sometimes carrying over to breaks and lunches for days after! The other popular activities are awards shadowing and cinema visits. We have taken part in Carnegie twice and NETBA twice. In the last Carnegie there was all-out war between the boys' choice (Maggot Moon) and the girls' choice (Wonder).

We were also inspired by the Guardian's translated fiction discussion and when looking at our collection realised how many books we had in other languages which just did not get used! So we joined up with the school languages department and put together a display and competition to showcase this area of our stock. The competition is a list of books, titles taken from the Guardian article, for students to find out where the stories originated from and which language they were originally printed in. We have also had our book review slips printed into different languages and the teachers are challenging the students to write a book review in Spanish, French or German to be entered into our prize draw.
Millennium RIOT Readers

At the moment, we are reading for the Read for my School competition, which is good fun. We also enjoy playing book-related games, charades or Twenty Questions for Book characters. We try to compile Top Ten lists (inspired by Guardian children's books top tens!), and talk about what we've read, though these discussions do easily get distracted...
Golden Morning Reading Group

The top activity we've ever done was have Alex T. Smith visit; he was brilliant and the school went Claude crazy! Also before Christmas we just sat together and read aloud from Demon Dentist - a really simple activity but if you get the right book it can be widely successful. Lots of the kids then went on to buy the book themselves, children who are reluctant readers - it just went to prove that there is a book for every child. Making displays of their reviews is always a good motivator. Also getting the children to write the same story but in different genres was successful. I'm considering doing mystery bookdating for Valentine's Day where I'll wrap up some books and they'll have to have a lucky dip about what they will read that week.
The Book Munchers

We like making up our own stories together, sometimes one word or sentence each. We listen to a story at the end of each day. We read a book together in a small group and we listen to each other and we talk about the book. We like reading in pairs and taking it in turns to read.
Cedar Readers

3) How do you go about getting books sent to you regularly?

This is one of the main reasons why we bring our own books to group – it saves us having to buy multiple copies. Aside from Guardian children's books, of course, we are now a review group for Pan Macmillan & New Horizons book suppliers who often give us free books, and we get 50 books at a time from our local school library service who are really good about getting us extra copies for awards shortlists. Our group is part of the Reading Agency Reading Activists programme who regularly send us books to review and missions to complete for them and we often use some of the Book Trust Pack books which we receive each year.
Millennium RIOT Readers

The way I get new stock for the library is doing reviews for various people, the occasional book fair where we get a percentage of the takings, donations from parents and a lot of my stock comes from charity shops.
The Book Munchers

4) What is the most important piece of advice you would give to a new group?

Keep your regular readers happy and engaged. Give them incentives to keep coming along, for instance our members get a special pass which lets them use rooms in school at lunchtime even when it is not the day for their year group. Make them feel like they are part of something special or elite and let the discussions last for as long as possible.
Millennium RIOT Readers

If I was setting up a reading group I would make sure I had a really good plan about what we were going to do in the session. I would make sure we had a blog or a website which we updated each week. I would also think really carefully about how you are going to manage having the books for the session.
The Book Munchers

Ask some children about their favourite books to get you started!
CedarReaders

Our very own Book Doctor also has some great advice for people wanting to set up a new group!

5) What is your top activity to do in 10 mins?

Our choices for the book discussion book case – going around the table to state what we are going to read next. This activity keeps them focused on their reading goals and is a really nice way to round a meeting off, but it also gives us all interesting new recommendations.
Millennium RIOT Readers

Speedbooking - we all had 45 seconds to look at a book and then pass it on - a good way to make them consider books they wouldn't normally think about.
The Book Munchers
Acting and reading out parts from a book. Read 20 pages! We like to get a play script and invite friends to read the different characters to make it into a play! We like it when the teachers read us a story.
CedarReaders

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