Our April meeting of the Ashburn Kids Book Club will meet on Thursday, April 2, at 7 pm. We will be discussing the book, Phineas L. MacGuire...Erupts, by Frances O'Roark Dowell. This book is one of the titles nominated for this year's Virginia Readers Choice (VRC) Award. It tells the story of a 4th grade boy, Phineas, who loves science and experiments more than anything. Phineas says, "If you're a scientist like me, you're always interested when a problem comes around. Because what you learn when you study science is that if you think hard enough and are willing to take risks, almost every problem has a solution. It's just a matter of discovering what that solution is." This philosophy is put to the test, however, when Phineas is forced to team up with a new boy in the class--a boy who has clashed with Phineas from day one--for the 4th grade science project fair. Phineas puts his scientific problem-solving to good use and, in the process, learns quite a lot about himself and others.
Besides our book discussion, we will also be voting for our favorite VRC books. The votes are due by the first week of April to the Virginia State Reading Association who will compile the votes of children all over the state and then announce the winners of this year's award.
