Book Club: A Boy Called Bat

A Boy Called Bat
Written by Elana K. Arnold with pictures by Charles Santoso
New York, NY: Walden Pond Press, 2017.

Yesterday was book club day in the GPL Children's Room! For the past two months, our book club has been reading and discussing Elana K. Arnold's A Boy Called Bat. This illustrated novel, first in a series of three, tells the story of Bat, a third-grader on the autism spectrum, and his adventures with a baby skunk brought home by his veterinarian mom.

During our first discussion of the book back in January, our book club members -- all third- through fifth-grade super readers -- had LOTS to say about Bat and his cast of supporting characters. We talked about all of Bat's various likes and dislikes and compared them to our own, and we brainstormed a list of characteristics that make Bat such a unique, interesting person. We also watched a video featuring Dr. Jerry Dragoo, the skunk specialist Bat communicates with in the book. He's a real person! Who knew?

For our second discussion, at our February meeting, we learned about the concept of perspective, and looked at how and why Bat's perspective on the world around him is often quite different from the perspectives of others. We also took a peek inside Bat's extremely literal mind, and played a game using idioms and other figures of speech (which always drive Bat nuts!).

Book club members wrote three-word reviews for A Boy Called Bat, some of which are more...creative than others:

All eight readers in attendance at yesterday's meeting gave A Boy Called Bat a rating of between 1 and 5 stars, and then we averaged the individual scores to come up with our Very Official Book Club Rating: 3.5 stars.

A Boy Called Bat is available in libraries and bookstores now.