Some children’s bookstores are legendary–and one of them is Saint Paul, Minnesota’s Red Balloon Book Shop which recently began an instore book group (called Chapter and Verse) that would be worth moving to Minnesota for!

Perhaps the only thing more fun than reading a good book is reading a good book that transcends all age categories–and then talking about it. It has always seemed peculiar that more book groups have not been formed for adults who love children’s literature–we at PaperTigers hosted an online bookgroup, The Tiger’s Choice, during 2008 for just that purpose, but the intimacy of a book group does not translate quite so effectively to cyberspace.

On the other hand, bookstores are the perfect venue for book groups. You know, when you go to a book group at your favorite bookstore, that you will have something in common with the other participants–you all love to read and you all love the same bookstore!

When I was pregnant with my first son in Fairbanks, Alaska, I began to rediscover the delights of a well-written children’s book, and was sure that I was the only adult who still frequented the young readers’ bookshelves of my local library. One evening a friend and I were chatting about what we’d read when Georgianna lowered her voice and confessed, “I read children’s books.” Suddenly we were a two-person book group, happily discussing A Wrinkle in Time and Harriet the Spy.

It’s so wonderful to know that children’s literature readers no longer feel clandestine and have places as congenial as the Red Balloon Bookshop to host their discussions! If you’ve been lucky enough to be a member of this group, please tell us about it–if you have another favorite bookshop that provides this opportunity, do let us know. And to Chapter and Verse at the Red Balloon–we’re on our way!

When a man recently went to a bookstore in search of his book group’s latest selection, he never dreamed that a clerk would question who the book was for, nor did he expect an unsolicited analysis of his character. Yet that’s what happened to one purchaser of Aryn Kyle’s novel, The God of Animals, when the woman who waited on him asked who he was buying the book for, and when learning it was for the customer himself, informed him that men who read “women’s fiction” were “sensitive.”

The customer was understandably unsettled by this encounter, which he later discussed on National Public Radio’s program, The Bryant Park Project. As a bookseller for many years, and as a parent of two sons, I’m perplexed and unsettled by this story as well, on a couple of different levels.

Even if we ignore the fact that The God of Animals is an amazing novel about the modern-day American West, in which one of the central relationships is that between a father and daughter, and is a book that should never be limited to readers of only one gender, the assumption that there are “men’s books” and “women’s books” and never the twain shall meet is one that is alien to any bookstore I have ever known. Yet at the same time, as a children’s bookseller, I often heard, and have espoused myself, the point of view that “girls will read books about boys but boys will rarely read books about girls.”

There are of course exceptions–I’ve yet to find any child who will not devour Roald Dahl’s Matilda, and Philip Pullman’s Golden Compass trilogy seems to have met few gender-based barriers. Yet I’ve learned from bitter experience that offering a boy Harriet the Spy or my all-time favorite Mistress Masham’s Repose often will evoke the disappointed response, “Oh, it’s about a girl.”

When my sons were small, they loved the adventures of Dorothy in the land of Oz or of Alice whether she was in Wonderland or through the looking glass as much as they did Peter Pan or Rat, Mole and Toad in The Wind in the Willows. And certainly Marjorie’s Brothers One and Two seem to enjoy books about females as well as males.

So when and how does this divergence in taste occur? Or do we just assume that it will occur and turn it into a self-fulfilling prophesy? In your experience, do boys avoid books in which girls take the leading role? If so, how can we broaden that point of view? And what would have become of J.K Rowling if she had written about Harriet Potter?

Most of us know that bright children frequently read books written for adults, but it’s less commonly recognized that bright adults frequently read books written for children. (Harry Potter, anyone?) No matter how old or how young we are, what unites us as readers is that deep feeling of satisfaction that comes with turning the last page and thinking “Now that was a good book.”

T.H. White’s The Once and Future King, A Wrinkle in Time, Harriet the Spy, and The Lord of the Rings are only a few of the books that have been read by adults and children with equal delight, and have been claimed by both groups as favorites. The element that these books all share is the magic created by a writer who placed highly original characters in a world that was constructed by considering the story, not the age of its readers, nor any underlying didacticism.

The people we hope to have in our new book group are readers who can sink into a children’s book with pleasure and want to talk about it in a community of like-minded bibliophiles, whether they be eight or eighty, whether they live in Peoria or Phnom Penh. Our goal is to host an ongoing conversation in which people from all over the world, adults and children, can unite over books that they all love and want to discuss online.

The books that are featured will fall into the range of readers between the ages of eight and twelve and will be set in countries all around the world. We hope that the magic of literature will help to bring together the inhabitants of far-flung continents, in the same way that the book discussions will bring together people of different generations and different cultures.

This is a book group that exists in whatever timeframe you choose – send your responses while you’re still in your pajamas, while you’re eating lunch, or when you should be doing your homework. Send your comments and respond to other readers whenever you like – it’s that easy. If you don’t like the book that’s been chosen, let us know. If it reminds you of others that you’ve read, tell us. If you don’t like the questions that have been posed about the book, write about the points that are meaningful to you. Suggest titles for future discussion. Argue, discover a new point of view, chat about books – for many of us there’s nothing better than that. Opening a book opens a new world to explore, and a good book makes that world a part of its reader forever. Let’s discover new worlds together through the magic of books.