Over the past two months, the 8th graders participated in a book club where they read Bill Peet: An Autobiography. Some people may be familiar with the name Bill Peet because of his children’s books that he created including, The Wump World, Hubert’s Hair Raising-Adventure, and Ella. Before his success in children’s literature, Bill was an integral part of Walt Disney Studios throughout the company’s formative years. The book chronicles Bill’s life experiences, both early on in life and while he was working at Disney. 

Bill Peet: An Autobiography is different from a typical book club book, in that it has pictures on every page. Bill wrote and illustrated the book and each page contains a drawing that he drew specifically for the autobiography. The illustrations added immensely to the text and were frequently key points of our discussions throughout the book club. 

The beginning of each of our meetings was student-led and discussion-based. For each class, the students were expected to read a certain section of the book and bring two discussion topics on sticky notes with them to class. The discussion topics could be parts of the text that the student enjoyed, disliked, were confused by, or that they just simply wanted to talk about. Each student would have the opportunity to share and discuss their discussion points. 

With the remaining time in each class, the students would complete an activity related to the week’s reading. One of the student’s favorite activities was when they were given the task of creating new captions for some of Bill Peet’s previously unsuccessful cartoons. The students had to critically analyze Bill’s drawings and come up with appropriate captions to entice The New Yorker to finally accept Bill’s comics. Another activity that the students especially enjoyed was when each of the students had the opportunity to examine one of Bill’s children’s books. During this activity, the students each selected a different children’s book that was written and illustrated by Bill and analyzed it looking for similarities between the autobiography and the children’s book. The students noted many similarities but especially among the art styles and word choice in both.

For the final project of the book club, the students had a choice of four options. Two of the students created a book review of the autobiography, detailing their thoughts and impressions of the novel. The other two students created a painting, mural, or drawing, that was meant to depict a selected part of Bill’s life. In addition to whatever the students painted or drew, they also had to include a description of their creation detailing why they included the given elements in the art piece.