Youth Book Club in a Bag offers schools, scouts, and other groups a quick and easy way to start a book club or hold a book discussion. Each Youth Book Club in a Bag includes 10 copies of a popular book, information about the author, copies of discussion questions, and an activity related to the book, all packaged in a sturdy zipper bag ready for checkout. Each tote may be checked out for 8 weeks. Available titles are listed below. Visit or call the Youth Services Desk at 224-543-1486 for more details.

Early Elementary

Regarding the Fountain: A Tale, in Letters, of Liars and Leaks by Kate Klise
When the principal asks a fifth-grader to write a letter regarding the purchase of a new drinking fountain for their school, he finds that all sorts of chaos results. [catalog]

Just Grace by Charise Mericle Harper
Misnamed by her teacher, seven-year-old "Just Grace" prides herself on being empathetic, but when she tries to help a neighbor feel better, her good intentions backfire. [catalog]

Stink & the Incredible Super-Galactic Jawbreaker by Megan McDonald
Seven-year-old Stink Moody discovers that he can get free samples by writing letters to candy companies and plans a surprise for his best friend's birthday. [catalog]

Intermediate Readers

The Report Card by Andrew Clements
Fifth-grader Nora Rowley has always hidden the fact that she is a genius from everyone because all she wants is to be normal, but when she comes up with a plan to prove that grades are not important, things begin to get out of control. [catalog]

Joey Pigza Loses Control by Jack Gantos
Joey, who is still taking medication to keep him from getting too wired, goes to spend the summer with the hard-drinking father he has never known and tries to help the baseball team he coaches win the championship. [catalog]

Poppy by Avi
Poppy the deer mouse urges her family to move next to a field of corn big enough to feed them all forever, but Mr. Ocax, a terrifying owl, has other ideas. [catalog]

Older Readers

Black Duck by Janet Lisle
Years afterward, Ruben Hart tells the story of how, in 1929 Newport, Rhode Island, his family and his best friend's family were caught up in the violent competition among groups trying to control the local rum-smuggling trade. [catalog]

Hattie Big Sky by Kirby Larson
For most of her life, 16-year-old Hattie Brooks has been shuttled from one distant relative to another. Tired of being "Hattie Here-and-There," she summons the courage to leave Iowa and move all by herself to Vida, Montana, to prove up on her late uncle's homestead claim. Under the big sky, Hattie braves hard weather, hard times, a cantankerous cow, and her own hopeless hand at the cookstove on her quest to discover the true meaning of home. [catalog]

Sasquatch by Roland Smith
Thirteen-year-old Dylan follows his father into the woods on the slopes of Mount St. Helens, which is on the brink of another eruption, in an attempt to protect the resident Sasquatch from ruthless hunters. [catalog]

Running Out of Time by Margaret Peterson Haddix
When a diphtheria epidemic hits her 1840 village, 13-year-old Jessie discovers it is actually a 1995 tourist site under unseen observation by heartless scientists, and it's up to Jessie to escape the village and save the lives of the dying children. [catalog]