Book Club and Clubhouse are all about connecting people to share and enjoy books together.
Both Book Club and Clubhouse are secure online chats where parents and children can discuss and debate favorite books, ask and answer questions, share thoughts, and connect through reading. As with any LightHouse feature, a parent can rest assured that they have complete control and oversight of their child’s activity and connections.
There are a few key differences between the features:
A Book Club is centered around a specific book or series of books. Parents can create or join existing book clubs with their children and participate alongside them. A Book Club can be one of two types: a one-time club discussing a single book, or an open ended club, which stays together to discuss many books in succession.
With existing Book Clubs, you can search by book name, genre, topic, fiction or nonfiction, faith-based or secular, or by ZIP Code to find the perfect club for your child. You can also enter a unique invitation code, provided by a friend, to join a specific club. Before joining, you can view the club description, genres read, current book, past books, and, if you find the club is a good fit for your child, request to join.
If you would like to create your own Book Club, it’s as easy as selecting a book to read and inputting some key information. Choose rather it’s a one-time or open ended club. Decide what grade range of children you would like to allow. Write the club description and bios for your family. Add questions for discussion from the automatically generated list or write ones of your own. Finally, invite your friends and family to join!
Once you are and your child are in a Book Club, it’s time to participate! Read the book, engage in the chat, answer discussion questions, embed quotes from the book, and more. You can also grab the unique invitation code and share it to invite other families you know who would be interested.
Your child’s online security is of paramount importance, so parents have total control and supervision over their child’s activity. Only parents can add their child to a club, and, if they are the admin, they must approve and admit other members. Parents can choose a range of grades for a club, admitting only children of a certain age. They can view all other club members, all of their child’s chats, report abuse, and remove their child at any time.
Clubhouse is a similar, but even more customizable, chat area. A Clubhouse is still created and overseen by a parent, but it is a child’s personal reading-related domain in which they guide the discussions.
A child can name their Clubhouse, write their bio (editable by the parent), choose a picture or avatar (with parent approval), select a cover image, and guide the discussions on any book or reading topic they choose--rather than having the discussion center around a particular book.
Unlike Book Clubs, parents cannot participate in Clubhouse chats, but still have the power to monitor all discussions, report abuse, and remove their child. Also, joining a Clubhouse is by invitation only. When you create a Clubhouse for your child, they receive a unique code to give to their friends and family in order to invite them to join.
Sharing a book with others makes the reading experience richer and more enjoyable, bringing different perspectives, new understanding, and insight to the content. With LightHouse Reader children and parents around the world can find common connections through reading.
