Book 5: The Tail of Emily Windsnap

 Our fifth - 5th! - meeting of MAD focused on The Tail of Emily Windsnap by Liz Kessler.  This book got a thumbs up all around and sparked some good discussion and lots of creativity with respect to snacks and crafts.  When the question was asked whether we would like to be a mermaid the consensus was we'd like to be a half mermaid - not be automatically turned into a mermaid whenever we were in the water.  That might be a bit of a challenge.

Led by Phoebe and Katrina we explored connections to mythical creatures and themes of friendship and loyalty in the book.  Ellie and Vanessa, the character shrinks, picked Millie to focus on and talked about how funny and unique she was - we all liked Millie and hoped she was in subsequent Emily Windsnap books (Layla gave everyone a sneak peak, having read on in the series, and said Millie moved to the island with Emily and her family).

Angela & Tessa were our snack masters and fed us with goldfish crackers, seaweed, tea, and iced buns (that did not have a memory drug in them!).  We did wonder how Emily's mom ate donuts everyday and stayed thin!

Led by Layla and Rebecca we played a bingo game with questions about the book and Phoebe was the winner of a shell covered mirror crafted by Layla.  Next we made clothespin mermaids - they were awesome! 

And I just checked in with Olivia and Tricia - apparently they were our "gossips" for the day but never got a chance to share what they'd learned about Liz Kessler.  So, note for the future - we'll all make sure everyone gets to share what they've brought to the meeting!  Fortunately we did share and talk about some things we'd all learned about Liz so we did find out quite a bit about her and her work.

We also decided to change how the books were picked so both moms and girls have a chance to pick some favorites.  One month the mothers will pick 3 titles and then the girls vote on the winner, and the other months the girls will pick 3 books and the moms will vote.  This month the mom's got to pick the 3 candidates and the winner, voted on by the girls, was A Mango Shaped Space by Wendy Mass.