Book Club

Levi is participating in a book club this summer with five other boys. Each mom picked a book of her choice and then planned an activity to partner with it. I chose "Shiloh" by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor, a book about a boy who finds an abused dog. We had a quiz for the story with some good discussion. Shiloh has some interesting personal ethics choices that the boys really did not all agree on. It was an opportunity to respect what someone else would do, even if you disagreed. For the activity, we made 'cookie dogs, and milkbone fridge magnets, and had a field trip to the pound. The boys were amazed at the amount of dogs in there and really enjoyed petting them.

We were going to try to do a service project so that they could walk a dog or clean a cage, but you have to be fifteen in order to volunteer there. We settled for looking, petting and talking to these sweet pets. There were a lot of pets that had rabies and the boys were shocked by that. They decided they wanted to work in the nursery where they held the small and sick animals. They fell in love with a bowlful of kittens that were very young. It was a new experience for most of them that I feel was a great eye-opening opportunity to see what it is like for these abused, lost and very loveable animals. We even found a beagle that looked just like "Shiloh", a treat for us all.