The Reading Maniacs met on Sunday April 21 to discuss Flipped by Wendelin Van Draanen. The house was decorated with various chicks (peeps, napkins, tray). Nancy B. and Robin brought snack of egg sandwiches and lemon bundt cake and we also had chick sugar cookies.

The girls had two activities before we collected ourselves for discussion. We did a vocabulary exercise, trying to pick the correct meaning of about 15 different words from the book. They also wrote, on chick paper, some of the themes from this book.

The girls and moms read from their journals or shared their ideas of themes. Everyone seemed to enjoy this novel.

We recognized that we couldn’t do a map exercise this month because the author didn’t identify any particular state (or time). We discussed how this must have been done on purpose, to give us the feeling that it could have taken place anywhere. The time might have been 1950’s or more. We reviewed the evidence for this. We decided to ask the author when she thought it took place.

We talked about the themes. The author was quoted as saying, "I definitely think in themes first. I always have something I’m wanting to say to the reader, but I try to present it in a non-lecturing way..."

We discussed at length the fact that there are two sides to every story, appearance vs reality. We identified many areas where reality was very different then it seemed on the surface or at first glance. We read an interview with the author where she stated that her inspiration for this story was "I think most people learn how to "look beneath the surface" too late in life. I know I did..."

We also talked about the themes of friendship, family ties, coming of age, prejudice, loss and honesty. We talked at length about whether it is important to always be honest. What if it isn’t polite? What if it hurts someone’s feelings? What if it just isn’t the whole truth? Is it ever okay to lie? Is it really worth it to always tell the truth?

We spoke of choices that Bryce made to avoid telling both Juli and his dad the truth about the eggs. We reflected on the discussions we’ve had about telling the truth with regard to other books we had read.

We shared a picture of a sycamore tree and talked about the losses that Juli had to deal with. Not only was she losing her favorite tree, but at that time her dog died and she found out about the wasted eggs.

We discussed the difference between hen/rooster/chicken/fowl/pullet/capon/poultry. We acknowledged the price of a dozen eggs.

We talked about the wonderful language in this book. It was rich with new words for us but also used lots of familiar teen-age jargon. We talked about the symbolism used and the word play on eggs, i.e., cracked open/egg on my face/cluck-faced. We talked about the significance of the title "flipped" and the different ways the author flipped things.

The "word of the month" for April 2002 is "petrified" - frightened.

We had a big discussion of books for next month. We will meet Sunday 3:30 p.m. May 19 and read Edward Eager’s "Half Magic."

Report prepared by Book Club parent Nancy Z.