Book Club, Girls’ Edition: “Callie’s Contest of Courage”

Callie's Contest of Courage

This month the girls read a really wonderful book:  Callie’s Contest of Courage by Jan May.  I appreciate this book for many reasons, not the least of these is the way that it encourages girls to be strong and faithful.

But it does something else, too:  it provides many ways for kids to be like Callie in real life, and we had fun trying them out at our October Book Club party.

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First, a photographer friend came over, and she shared some simple tips and tricks to taking great photographs.  The girls asked good questions, and afterwards we headed out in search of interesting subjects.

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These magnolia seeds fascinated several of the girls.

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They got really into their photography and tried out lots of different perspectives for each shot.

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After that we went inside to talk about editing photographs.  I’m no expert, but I’ve played around with PicMonkey a bit, and so each girl chose one photo to edit with that program.  This one was a magnolia seed pod …

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while these were the seeds that they were studying so intently.

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Another girl was fascinated with the American flag that we found up the street.  Personally, I enjoyed seeing how creative they could be – both with their initial photographs and with their editing!

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We decided, though, that no book club about Callie would be complete without a pie eating contest – and the girls really got into that!  We made basic plastic bibs to keep the pie off their clothes, and I asked the girls to come with their hair pulled back.  Then, after making simple banana cream pies, they stuck their faces in and got to town!  Giggling was rampant during this part of book club, and they grinned from ear to ear – with whipped cream decorating everything in between – while they licked their pie tins clean. 

We all loved Callie – even My Little Man, who’s determined that his book club needs to read Callie, too.  With such a strong and interesting character and lots of adventures, Callie’s Contest of Courage is a great choice for your next book club.

Photography Contest Now Live

The girls were so fascinated with photography that we’ve kicked off our Nature Photography Contest for Kids – which is now live!  Click here to learn more and enter your child’s photos.  You could even win your own copy of Callie!

For some information about how to take good photographs, read Photography Tips for Kids: Perspective here.

What makes you pull out your camera?

1 comment

  1. Actually, it makes our kids be more active. Like me, as a mother, I want my kids happy, safe and have more fun to do a lot of things what they want. And I always take their bribes to be less dirt to their clothes. Especially like the plastic baby bibs they always wore it every hour while they playing.

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