Remember that time I unexpectedly met one of my long-time heroes and cried all over her like a little baby? Well, that didn’t stop me from continuing to (s)talk to Robin Jones Gunn online and generally try to get everyone I know to love her.
So, over quarantine my now 14 year old and I decided to do a Zoom Book Club with the first of Robin’s YA books, Summer Promise in the Christy Miller series.
It was one of the best things I’ve ever done with my teenage daughter. Five of her best friends and their moms talked about dating, boys, Jesus and growing up. Things I’ve said to my daughter a million times were repeated by those moms. They shared stories about their own dating years and what they wished they’d done differently.
It was heavenly.
So, after I sent out the invites for the Zoom Book Club, I had this great idea. WHAT IF ROBIN JONES GUNN COULD COME TO OUR BOOK CLUB?! I mean, it’s on Zoom! And the whole world is Zooming. And I’ve cried in her face and tagged her in about a million Facebook and Instagram posts. It could happen! She might be bored in her bungalow in Hawaii!
I took a deep breath, messaged her and lo and behold, she said YES.
ROBIN CAME TO OUR BOOK CLUB.
Every single person in our book club loved the books so much that even though two of the girls couldn’t come to talk to Robin, the moms still showed up. And when I told my two (decade-younger-than-me) sisters-in-law about it, they came, too–just so they could tell Robin how much they loved her books as teenagers (that I GAVE THEM!!)
It was, in short, one of the best days of my life. I literally cried. (SURPRISE.)
Now, here’s the interesting part. In the middle of talking to and with Robin via Zoom, I said, “Whew, Robin, I was going to tell you that we should write a devotional together about these books because there is just SO MUCH good stuff in it!” I was serious in that there is so much good stuff and that it would make a fabu devotional but not expressly serious about making her write with me.
Well, a few days later, after I had sufficiently gotten my self back together, I got a message from Robin. She said, “Were you serious about writing a devotional together?”
<INSERT SHOUTING AND FAINTING EMOJI HERE>
I replied that I was dead serious because as I read the Christy books for our Book Club, I wanted to stop so many times and say, “Oooh! We need to talk about this! Oh! Do you see how this is straight from God’s Word?!”
This little conversation progressed to a real life phone conversation and turned into a few fun little writing projects.
Yes, you read that correctly.
I DID A WRITING PROJECT WITH ROBIN JONES GUNN.
I told her that what I’m actually good at, even over writing, is setting up experiences for people. That’s what my Christmas devotional is, that’s what my all my family devotion series are, hey–even my movie reviews are set up for you to experience and converse with your family about the topic.
And that’s what I’ve done for Robin.
We worked together on a full homeschool novel study/literature unit for the first book in the Christy Miller series, Summer Promise.
It includes discussion questions for each chapter, book report/project ideas, detailed author bio plus an answer key. It is really fun.
When I got about halfway through with the discussion questions, I sent them to my daughter’s friends to make sure it wasn’t dumb. They gave me some input and one of them said, “I’d do this anytime, not even in school!”
If you are homeschooling your tween daughter, please consider using this curriculum. It’s not a devotional, but walking through the book so slowly and thinking about the characters in such detail will bring so many good conversations between the two of you.
Annnd, because Robin is so nice (y’all, really, “nice” doesn’t even slightly speak to her sweet spirit!) she is giving you 10% off with code AMANDA. (This applies to your entire cart! Expires 11/1/20. One time use.)
And if you’re not in the target demographic, I bet you know someone who is. Would you forward this to them? So they can use it in their homeschool?
(And y’all really, who isn’t homeschooling now?!! Covid has almost everyone at home doing school! You could add this to the digital learning your daughter is already doing!)
Now. I bet you think this post is over. But, I’ve actually got more to tell you.
First of all, remember the Mother Daughter Book Club at the top of this post? My daughter and I planned some really fun and creative activities for it. I’ve made another post for you with these ideas and some PDFs to download for free plus my top tips for hosting an online Mother Daughter Book Club!
Click over to see the great ideas and download your own PDFs!
BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE!
At the beginning of October, I am going to share the BEST resource for you and your tween daughter (that’s 8-12 year olds, y’all). Like, I want to cry just thinking about it. And yes, obviously, it’s from ROBIN! But wait till I tell you more about it–you will be as excited as I am. So, make sure to check back next week!