When reading Alabama Moon, you will find two different kinds of strange food–food that is strange to Moon, and food that is strange to just about everyone else. At book club, you can sample something from each category.
Moon’s regular diet consisted of food he could catch, grow or find in the forest. He ate berries and even raccoon while living in the woods with his Pap. Yucca roots, thistle, acorns, cattails, fish, pine needle tea, snake, snapping turtle, deer (check out pages 150-151 for food and other uses) are all eaten by the boys after escaping from Pinson. Some of these things might be stranger and harder to find than others, though deer jerky would be a great snack if you can find some in your area. But if you can’t, you could be creative and offer beef jerky labeled “deer jerky” and green tea labeled “pine-needle tea”.
When Moon leaves the woods and first tries a sweet roll, he says, “I bit into it and the sugar tasted so good I almost closed my eyes while I chewed.” Moon says his jail breakfast of bacon, eggs and a biscuit were “the best breakfast I ever had.” “I’d never tasted anything better,” was Moon’s opinion of a hamburger made by Hal and his dad. We know all these tastes and, while yummy, we most likely wouldn’t be as wow’ed as Moon. But, it would be fun to try eating a sweet roll at book club and savoring it as if you were Moon tasting it for the first time.
Good luck with snack. Please email and let us know if your group tries something really unique–we would love to hear about it.
Feel free to drop me a line at contact@nationalhomeschoolbookaward.com if you have questions, comments or just need moral support while getting your book club started!
Or, join the discussion and post your comments or questions on my Facebook page, Valerie the Book Club Lady, at:
~ Valerie the Book Club Lady