THE MOTHER-DAUGHTER BOOK CLUB

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Book 1

In the book “Little Women”, each character had their own dreams (aka “castles in the air”):

Laurie (a boy) wanted to become a famous musician.
Meg wanted to live in a big house and be rich.
Jo wanted to be a famous author.
Amy wanted to be the best artist in the world.
Beth wanted to stay home and take care of her parents instead of becoming rich and famous.

Similarly, a few modern-day 6th-graders have dreams of their own:

Emma Hawthorne wants to be a writer. Perhaps she’s inspired by her parents (considering how her mom is a librarian and her dad is a freelance writer).

Jess Delaney (aka “Goat Girl”) wants to be a veterinarian since she loves animals and finds them to be less complicated than humans. She also wants to be reunited with her mom (who left Massachusetts for a Soap Opera acting role in New York). In the meantime, Jess’s dad is doing the best he can to hold down the fort at Half Moon Farm while taking care of Jess and her twin little brothers. Jess is shy, a big math/ science nerd, a talented singer, and best friends with Emma.

Megan Wong wants to be a fashion designer (although her MIT-graduate parents want her to become a lawyer). She used to be close friends with Emma, but ever since her dad got rich from a tech invention, she ditched Emma for the “cool” kids known as the “Fab Four” (led by Becca Chadwick and followed by Jen and Ashley). Megan’s mom uses the new boatload of money to donate to innumerable charity causes.

Cassidy Sloane wants to be a professional hockey player, but her mom worries that it’s too unsafe (especially after losing her husband in a tragic car accident). Even though Cassidy is a tomboy, her mother used to be a famous fashion model.

Throughout the book, there is a rollercoaster of events:

Cassidy, Emma, and Jess prank the Fab Four in a graveyard on Halloween night by scaring them with a battery-powered jack o'lantern that they held up with a hockey stick.

Emma’s older brother, Darcy, lends Cassidy one of his old helmets during tryouts. Because the school only has a boys team and not a girls team, Cassidy’s only hope for being able to play was by trying out for the boys team while being disguised as a boy. Her talent spoke for herself when she made the cut. At first the coach wasn’t happy that he was deceived, but he couldn’t take back his decision (due to Title IX, which states that you can’t discriminate based on gender) -- and good thing because Cassidy ended up becoming MVP for her team!

Cassidy’s mom and Cassidy started going to a counselor. The counselor explains to Cassidy’s mom that she needs to listen to what Cassidy makes Cassidy truly happy. Cassidy’s mom signs a contract with Cassidy to let her play hockey on the condition that Cassidy works on her attitude and tries to be more ladylike.

Becca steals Emma’s journal and humiliates her by reading her poem called “Zach Attack” in front of her crush, Zach.

Jess gets the lead role in the school play for Beauty and the Beast. Upset that they only got the parts of dancing silverware, the Fab Four spread rumors that Jess only got the part because the drama director felt bad for her mom being gone in NY. Furthermore, during the live show, the Fab Four let out Jess’s goat (who they overheard Jess’s dad say was just picked up from the vet and waiting in the truck). It caused quite the commotion on stage.

Megan almost got kicked out of the book club due to the goat prank, but one of the mothers came up with the idea of her making it up to Jess by designing and sewing her a custom dress for homecoming.

At homecoming, Emma feels betrayed that Zach asked Jess (and not her) to dance (and that Jess agreed knowing that Emma liked Zach). But Jess explained to Emma that she didn’t want to rudely decline (and besides, she likes Darcy instead, so she doesn’t need to be worried).

Jess seemed to find her voice and not be so shy after the play. She even confidently stuck up for her little brother as he was being picked on by Becca. During this argument, Megan also finally finds the courage to stand up to Becca, finally realizing that she’s a meanie and the book club girls make more genuine friends.

Jess’s dad doesn’t quite understand the wants of a middle school girl. He thought it was a good idea to set up a maypole with rope for Jess and the rest of the book club girls to dance around in a circle as the “Maypole Maidens” at her birthday party. Jess found this humiliating, but she eventually was able to laugh it off.

At the end of the book, all the girls and their mothers go on a summer break trip to NY to visit Jess’s mom. Everyone ends up with what they want:

Megan got to meet with one of Cassidy mom’s old fashion stylists. This stylist was impressed with Megan’s sketches and offered to feature them in a magazine.

Cassidy got an autographed Red Sox baseball.

Emma prosed a line change in the Soap Opera script and became credited as an “Assistant Writer” in that episode’s credits.

Jess didn’t get immediate results (since she left NY without her mother). However, her mother realized that she needs to prioritize family over career, so she talked with the show’s producers to have her character be placed in a mysterious coma until they figure out a permanent solution of only making guest appearances.

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Book 2: Much Ado About Anne

In this book, everyone has their own struggles:

Emma wishes that she were skinnier.

“‘I wish I was a wisp of a thing,’ I mutter. // My mother picks up the hairbrush and pulls it through my curls again. ‘Emma, the world is a bit like a garden,’ she says. ‘Each flower is unique. There are daisies, and lilacs, and roses, and peonies -- all sorts of lovely flowers. Now, wouldn’t it be silly for a tulip to mope around wishing it were an iris?’ // ‘I guess it would depend on how fat the tulip was.’ // … ‘You’re beautiful, Emma, and so are Jess, and Megan, and Cassidy! You need to try and appreciate your own uniqueness, instead of worrying so much about comparing yourself to others’” (42-43).

Cassidy’s mom has started dating a semi-bald accountant named Stanley Kinkaid (“Stan the man”), and she’s scared that everyone is forgetting about her dead father.

Megan feels tension between her two friend groups. Even though she sided with the book club at the end of the last book, they don’t appreciate fashion the way that the Fab Four do. And when Cassidy, Emma, and Jess pull pranks on Becca after she and her mother join the book club, Becca writes an article in the school newspaper that throws shade at Megan’s mom and falsely credits Emma as the author and Cassidy as the photographer. This makes Megan furious and she sides with Becca for a bit, thinking that her book club friends betrayed her.

Jess’s family is under pressure for coming up with a lot of money to save Half Moon Farm. A change in the law made it so that they now owe a huge property tax since they are running a business, despite the fact that it’s a historic land. If they can’t pay up, they will have to sell the land to someone (likely to someone who wants to bulldoze everything and turn the farm into condos).

Everything ends up working out:

Emma signs up for ice skating lessons, which she both enjoys and has helped her lose weight. She also begins to develop feelings for Becca’s geeky older brother (Stewart), who likes her for just how she is and who she has more in common with than her old crush (Zach).

Stanley proposes to Cassidy’s mom, which Cassidy is not happy about. However, Cassidy’s mom promises her that she will never forget about her first love. And Stanley promises Cassidy that he’s not trying to replace her biological dad. Rather, he just loves her mom very much and wishes for the chance to be Cassidy’s friend.

Becca comes up with a go-big-or-go-home idea that conjures up enough money for saving the farm: a fashion show! Pulling it off was one big team effort (including designing posters, all the girls serving as models, and Cassidy’s mom making a surprise walk down the runway at the end). Megan had no reason to be worried about people thinking that her designs were stupid because everyone loved them.