Every Tuesday and Thursday a group of TJ students ranging from ninth to twelfth grade gather around and talk about what they know best: their love for books.
Read book reviews by Spartan critics at
This year Thomas Jefferson High School paired up with the Tattered Cover, a well-known area bookstore, to start a club known as the Review Crew. This team is led by TJ’s very own Librarian, Sudi Stodola, and its purpose is to critique books that are not yet released. “The Tattered Cover sends me books called the advanced readers copies, also known as ARC,” said Stodola. “Our job is to then read these books and then post a review on what we think of the book.” These posts then help the Tattered Cover decide if they should put these books on the shelves for their loyal readers to access.
The Review Crew meets up every Tuesday and Thursday in the library after school to pick out new books, discuss their current reads, and spend time with friends. “So far I have gotten three boxes full of books from the Tattered Cover,” said Stodola. “The kids can pick any book to read, then they must post a review on our blog about it. The really cool part is if the student likes the book, it’s theirs to keep!”
One member of the crew, Junior Cody Anderson, says that he loves the club. “I have read four or five books this year, some of them I didn’t give very nice reviews to,” said Anderson laughing. “What I like most though is how we have so many options of books to pick from. Every new book you find is like a new treasure.”
Stodola also admitted that it is hard for the students to keep up with posting their reviews with all their schoolwork and sports. “To push the crew members to post, we have quarterly pizza parties,” said Stodola. “These parties are for all the kids that did their reviews. The kids get to pick out what kind of pizza they want and we also have a movie going on for them.” May 20, 2011 is the next time crew members will be rewarded for their hard work, and the movie showing is The Big Lebowski!
This crew has now joined hands with the Knitting Club and likes to refer to themselves as the Knit and Lit Club. “Some weeks we will have half the club knitting while others are reading,” said Stodola. “Mostly, though, we like to knit and discuss our books at the same time.” Stodola even went as far as to say that this club is her favorite one here at TJ. She said that she loves the comradery and the fact that students from different grade levels and cliques can come together and mix.
This crew started at the beginning of the year, and Stodola says that for the most part the club is made up of at least ten regular students. “We have some kids that throughout the year come in and want to check out what we do,” said Stodola. “Some kids read one book and come back for more, while others read one and we don’t see them ever again.” This club is open to anyone to come and check out and, as always, the more the merrier! To check out what the Spartans are blogging currently one can visit wellreadspartans.wordpress.com/
