De Soto High School offers a wide array of sports, clubs and activities that students can take advantage of to get involved. For the common bookworm, the Books to Movies club could be a great way to start participating in extracurricular activities as well as bond with new friends over a good book.

“The Books to Movies group is something that Mrs. Sweet and I started a couple years ago,” said librarian and group director Jennifer Sosna. “We choose a book that is about to become a movie or has already been made into a movie and we each read it [individually]. Then we get together and we discuss it and make predictions about how they can best make it up as a movie. Then we go as a group to see the movie. We talk afterwards about how either the book was very similar or not and we critique it.”

Sosna described the composition and meetings of the club.

“It [the amount of people in the group] varies depending on the popularity of the book,” Sosna said. “Right now there are ten of us [and] we meet every two to three months, depending on how long the book is, so we can give everybody the time to read it. We meet once and then we might not meet again for another month or two. It’s not like we have the most regular schedule.”

English teacher Amanda Sweet, who helped start the group, explained the reasoning behind why the club was started.

“We were looking for ways to encourage students to read more for fun outside of class and that their reading will be more well-rounded, which is definitely a positive experience.” Sweet said.

According to Sweet, the type of books they read vary in genre and content.

“We read a pretty wide variety of stuff: sometimes children’s books, books that people read before in middle school, books that are a little bit more adult in content or more serious in subject matter.” Sweet said.

Both Sosna and Sweet spoke highly of the most recent read for the group.

“I think my favorite book has been the one that we just read, A Monster Calls [by Patrick Ness], because it’s very unexpected and it’s a really interesting way to handle a serious subject with a younger audience,” Sweet said.

Many people might be standoffish to the idea of a reading group because they believe it would take up too much of their time, thus discouraging them from joining. However, the time obstacle may not be that big of an issue.

“It doesn’t require a whole lot of your time,” Sweet said. “A lot of people have the misconception that we have to meet regularly to talk about the book, but we give you a lot of time to read it and then we meet up when everybody’s ready. It’s not as much of a time commitment as you might think.”

To find out more information about the club and meeting times, talk to Sosna in the library or see Sweet in her classroom in the English hallway.