Sophomore Linday Barnes has expressed her desire to start a Book Club for other students and teachers.

Starting Oct. 19, everyone wishing to join the club will meet in Ms. Batistoni’s room during Power Hour. 

Anyone and everyone is welcome; all genders and ages are encouraged to come to meetings. The only requirement is that you are respectful and follow school guidelines. 

A Book Club here at school hasn’t been established for quite some time, but Barnes had this idea because of the amount of staff members and students she had seen reading around school and off campus. 

“I noticed that so many of my friends were getting book recommendations from TikTok and starting to read books again,” Barnes said. “With all of these avid readers, I thought we needed a space to get together and talk about them at school.”

Barnes plans to separate the Book Club into two separate groups: one that enjoys reading the classics, and another group that enjoys reading young adult (also known as YA)  and/or contemporary fiction. 

Both small groups will meet monthly. The meetings will be held separately and on different days, but still only once a month.

During the meetings, there will be a Google Form for each sub-group where members can suggest books and vote on what book to read for that particular month. 

According to Barnes, you are not forced into reading the Book of the Month. 

“You can choose to read the book of the month or just come and sit down with other bookworms and talk about your favorite books,” she said. “We plan on making it a fairly relaxed environment, and no one will be forced to do anything they don’t want to.”

When asked about her hopes for the club, her main response was to understand the large value of reading. 

In Barnes’ words, during an age of constantly being on technological devices and constant responsibility of keeping up with the news and posting on social media, reading allows us to escape for a while and gives us a chance to learn a thing or two about ourselves and even the world. 

Her other ambitions for the new-found club include: to give people a community that they can comfortably share their interest in reading and “to encourage reading among people who want to start reading more but feel like they don’t know where to start or don’t have the time.”

If you are interested in joining Central Hardin’s Book Club, keep an eye out for posters and flyers around the halls in regard to meeting times and any extra information!