Cat's Book Club

Yesterday Cat and I hosted a meeting for our Mother Daughter Book Club.  The book was The Power of Poppy Pendle about a little girl who is born with magical powers but instead of wanting to study to be a witch, she is intent on being a baker.  The book contains several yummy recipes and the story includes afternoon tea, so we used those elements when we planned the meeting.  We made herbal iced tea, we had a selection of fruits, and Cat made an orange cupcake recipe from the book which turned out great.

Then we had the mothers and daughters make their own brownie recipe using a base batter that Cat made and adding in the extracts and mix-ins they wanted.  This was a last-minute activity we planned, so we just pulled out things we had on hand already, but it was successful and Cat's Lemon Mint Brownies were quite tasty.

Mint chips, butterscotch chips, Craisins, white chocolate chips,
marshmallows, and toasted sliced almonds.

The girl who is to be in charge of next month's discussion brought three books for us to consider, and Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone won by unanimous vote.  This was at about 2:30 yesterday afternoon.  Cat began reading our copy right away, and even though she had piano practice, dinner, and a softball game after the book club meeting, she managed to finish the book before she went to sleep.  Ben and I were hanging out in the family room at about 11pm and Cat came upstairs, thrust the book in my lap and told me I could read it now because she was finished with it.

She read the entire second book today (even though we spent hours at her cousins' house) and has a healthy start on book three.  When we were arriving at the library this afternoon, I looked over at her reading in the passenger seat next to me and said in a surprised tone, "You're going to finish that today!"

She replied, "I only have 200 pages left, so, yeah, probably."  (It turns out that she had less than 100 pages left at the time, but it was still a funny comment, and a great illustration of the way she often attacks books.)

Finishing up Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets in the Provo Library.

The first time Cat read the Harry Potter series, she finished all of the books in a month.  I'm wondering if she won't finish all of them in a week this time around?  (And yet, I have to say, for the record, that Cat has made the bold claim that the Fablehaven books are better than the Harry Potter books.  And I'm pretty sure she's already read that series at least twice...)