Site of the Month: Facebook Book Clubs

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What better way to get kids talking about books than on one of their favorite pastimes—Facebook. A recent application on the social networking site, Book Clubs offers students a free and convenient place to share ideas about books, authors, and related interests. With it, Facebook members can create or join a reading group devoted to any category, region, interest, or author.

Launched in 2008, Book Clubs missed out on the Harry Potter craze. But the site has seen a lot of traffic from teenage girls who want to chat about Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight series. Users can post comments about a book or author, rate or review books, and build or search a library of titles. According to Rusty Weston, Book Clubs’ cofounder, some of the club’s earliest users were teachers who encouraged their students to use the platform—however, the company urges kids to protect their privacy by creating private reading groups that are by invitation only.

Book Clubs has gotten a favorable response, with 6,200 members thus far. “For many of our members it is the first time they have belonged to a reading group,” says Weston. “We want to get them off to a good start.”