By the book
<p>Pierce Duncan, 12, engages in a book discussion at Hayden Public Library on Thursday. The middle school book club meets every week online and are now meeting once a month in person.</p>
<p>Mandi Harris leads the middle school book club discussion addressing the book Cinder, by Marissa Meyer at Hayden Public Library Thursday.</p>
Middle school members of a new book club got fired up about "Cinder."
The youngsters read the book during the first month of the new club organized by the Hayden Community Library Network and Coeur d'Alene school district.
Of the 50 middle school students who signed up, 27 attended a first face-to-face meeting of club members Thursday at the Hayden Public Library. They ate pizza and participated in a very animated discussion about the book.
Prior to Thursday's meeting, the club - which the students agreed to call "Newfangled" - met online each week through the school's virtual blackboard program called Edmoto. The students will continue to meet online and once a month in person at the library.
"Every week it's not required to come, but we encourage them to come and they also can post questions ... it's sort of a weeklong dialogue that the kids participate in," said Karen Yother, youth services coordinator for the Community Library Network. "We know that kids are going to camp, we know that they're going to grandma's house, we know that they're doing other things, so that's why we wanted to make sure it's sort of this open-ended program so they could come and go."
Mandi Harris, youth services specialist for the Community Library Network, known to the kids as "Miss Mandi," led the discussion Thursday.
The book "Cinder," written by Marissa Meyer, is a Cinderella spinoff set in futuristic New Beijing. It is about a young woman who was turned into a cyborg at a young age when her stepmother volunteered her for plague research.
"Who can tell me what the oldest fairy tale in the world is - the one that there are versions of it all over the world?" Harris asked.
"Cinderella - and one of the oldest versions started in China," Harris said, revealing why the author used New Beijing as the book's setting.
Harris asked the kids questions about the book, eliciting many responses by the members of Newfangled. When she asked about the book and how it relates to humanity, one student gave an answer that had many of the adults in the room sharing glances and nodding their heads in approval.
"Cinder is human because she has flaws," he said. "It's what makes us all human. None of us are perfect and none of us will ever be perfect."
Yother said the kids really enjoyed the book and had good discussions online as well as at the live meeting.
"They have really great questions and great answers. This book has really grabbed their attention - and they chose it," she said.
Fourteen copies of the second book in the series were donated and raffled off among the students who attended the meeting. The next book Newfangled will read for July is "Chomp," by Carl Hiassen. Each student received a new copy of the book before they left Thursday.
Yother said due to support from Kiwanis, STCU, Friends of the Coeur d'Alene Library, the Kroc Center and Kootenai electric, each member of Newfangled receives copies of the books they will be allowed to keep and will continue to do so as the book club goes on indefinitely.
Students and community members are invited to participate in the club.
In a message to The Press, Anna Wilson, director of title programs for the Coeur d'Alene school district, said their goal is to have at least 100 members and to "inspire a love of reading in our middle school students."