Notes from a Liar & Her Dog by Gennifer Choldenko

The Locale: Odessa & AiYing’s

The Author's Website

The Book Website

The Book: For Antonia MacPherson, lying is a way of life. If it weren’t for her best friend, Harrison, and a tiny ball of fluff named Pistachio, she would be miserable. No matter what she does, her mother thinks she’s wrong. Her younger sister, Katherine the Great, takes notes on Ant’s misbehaviors, which she keeps in a spiral notebook for their parents. Her older sister, Your Highness Elizabeth, says Ant is in training to be a juvenile delinquent, Harrison smells like a salami sandwich, and Pistachio should be put out of his misery. With all those royal opinions, who’s going to listen to an Ant?But when a teacher takes Ant under her wing, Ant's way of life may have to change. Just Carol likes the truth. And she won’t take anything less.

The Fun (Odessa’s Report): I had a fun book club meeting this Saturday at my house. We had all read the book Notes from a Liar and her Dog by Gennifer Choldenko. These are the activities we did:

For the first activity, we all were assigned three letters from the alphabet. You would have to use your assigned letters and for each letter you had to come up with a word--for an event, person, anything that relates to the story--from the book that started with it. These are the words we came up with:

Antonia. Bad decisions. Cave man & Carol.Decisions. Elizabeth is your highness. Friends. Giraffe. Harrison. Ice cream treats. Just Carol. Kate. Liar. Mother - real and other mothers. Nit picky mom. Oath. Pistachio. Queen Elizabeth. Rehearsal. Sara's Road & Snotty Sisters. Trophy. Unusual Ant. Vet. Wet with lion pee. X squared. Yellow pages. Zoo Teens.

For the second activity, we played a game called 2 lies and 1 truth. We all had to write down 2 lies and 1 truth, then one by one we read it aloud to everybody. We had to guess which one was the truth. This game relates to the story because Antonia, the main character of the story tells a lot of lies. I thought it was very interesting how for some people we couldn't figure out which one was the truth and for others it was pretty easy.

Kate presented her three books and we voted on which one we were going to read. The winner was: The Sorta Sisters. I can't wait until the next book club meeting!

The Vote: Kate's three selections to consider were:

• The Sorta Sisters by Adrian Fogelin
• Heidi by Johanna Spyri
• The Secret of the Old Clock by Carolyn Keene

The winner was The Sorta Sisters by Adrian Fogelin.

A very exciting note--Ms. Fogelin is a Tallahassee author who has written seven other books for young adults. At a children’s writer workshop at the Main Library, Brenda & Kate introduced themselves to her. Ms. Fogelin has agreed to attend our book club meeting on May 14th!!!! Ms. Fogelin has also started a front porch library in her Tallahassee neighborhood. Moms & Daughters should bring gentle used books to donate to her library. You can read about it on her website. http://www.adrianfogelin.com/

Who Presents Next: Katie & Brenda (our new members) and Smith & Elizabeth

Changes/Updates: Thanks to Perri & TJ, we have a new mom & daughter pair--Katie & Brenda...Not to be confused with Kate & Brenda...huh?? : ) Please be sure to add them to your email list.

Susan & Olivia passed on their time to invite. A new member. Just couldn’t find the right match this time. They pass to Emma & Diana.

Up Next: A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle @ Megan & Dawn’s home on April 16th.