Island Books is celebrating its three-year anniversary this fall for launching its first Island Kids Book Club.

The club began as an idea from a second grade student named Henrietta and her mother, Lindsey Holt, back in 2023 to share her love for reading. The club started with a small group of her daughter’s friends that she knew from after-school activities.

“I reached out to Island Books and said, ‘Hey, my daughter has a love for reading and she wants to start a little book club,’” said Lindsey Holt. “Can you please help us with some book selections? And then Island Books really stepped up to the plate and said, ‘Well, why don’t we make it an Island Book-hosted book club?’”

Becca Oman is the kids specialist bookseller for Island Books. She said when the club first started, she had the children vote, but now, she chooses the book.

“I have them kind of selected for the rest of the year and next year based on books that my co-worker and the other children’s specialist have recommended,” said Oman. “And ones that I read as a kid that I really liked … it’s a combination of those and the new ones.”

Henrietta said since being a part of the club, she has found a community of people her age that shares her same passion.

“There are so many friends that I’ve met through book club that I never thought these people would be my friends because we’re so different,” said Henrietta. “But we have such a strong passion for reading and the books that we love to read.”

Before the club came about, Lindsey Holt and her family began reading to her now 10-year-old daughter and fifth-grader, Henrietta, at a young age.

“My grandma read to me out loud from the time I was in kindergarten,” said Henrietta. “Books like ‘Miss Piggly Wiggly’ and Jenny Linsky, then my dad would read big novels like Harry Potter and stuff that were like big, big books.”

Once the 10-year-old started showing signs for a passion for reading, Lindsey Holt decided to let her begin her own reading journey: “She likes to read out loud, and eventually we said, you’re getting to be old enough to start to find your own love of reading,” she said.

Island Kids Book Club meets once a month on the third Thursday, excluding December. Each meeting begins at 6 p.m. with an intro question or fun fact about the book they were assigned to read.

“If there’s anyone new, we go around and do names just so everyone gets kind of familiar with everyone else,” said Oman. “And then we take time to ask questions like, what our favorite characters are, which is a popular question, and which character would you want to be, and which one would you want to be friends with.”

At the end of each meeting, the club members will hang out and eat snacks. Oman reminds the club members of the next book to read. The children are required to read the book before the initial meeting, but everyone is welcome.

The club also invites local authors to speak to the children every year in October, along with getting their book signed.

For the last two in a half years, Lindsey Holt discovered her daughter learning new genres of books.

“You’re forced to read maybe something that doesn’t come naturally to you,” she said. “But by the end of it, maybe you’ve discovered a new genre or a new writing style or learned something that you wouldn’t have naturally gravitated to.”

The Island Kids Book Club is designed for fourth- and fifth-graders, but other ages are welcome.

“We’d love to be able to host more book clubs for younger ages,” said Oman. “We don’t really have the time or the staffing to do that at the moment.”

Since the club began, Oman has followed the first few club members who were second-graders at the time to now fourth- and fifth-graders by finding books to grow with the children as they age.

“I know we have some kids that have dyslexia. They’ve worked through the books with their parents, which is great,” said Oman.

The next meeting is at 6 p.m. Sept. 18. The book for that meeting will be “The Secret of Platform 13,” a children’s fantasy novel by Eva Ibbotson.