St. Pius X founded a chapter of the Tome Student Literary Society last year. Moderated by librarians LeyAnna Messick and Eleonora Straub, Tome Student Literary Society is a non-profit organization that was founded in 2012 in Georgia by two sisters, Jennifer Parker and Becca Hamby.
Their goal was to start a book club that would unite students from around the country. Since then, they have turned a small society with only 100 members into a nationwide organization with over 2,000 members.
It was not easy to get Tome Society started; before they became a wildly successful non-profit, they started out with only 4 board members.
“[The] 4 board members were doing the bulk of the work of the organization – reading books, writing discussion guides and reading bowl questions, meeting with schools, planning TomeCon, and more,” said co-founder Becca Hamby.
Despite the small number of board members, they weren’t alone.
“Fellow school librarians in our region were, and still are, huge supporters,” said Hamby. They helped with TomeCon and spread the word; they even volunteered as readers for the Book Award List. It is an annual reading list of outstanding, recently published books for elementary, middle, and high school students that comes out in February.
Tome Society is very dedicated to picking high-quality books for their readers, and the board members spend the year finding new books for next year’s list. First they pick books to put on their “To Be Read” list, then the board members and volunteers read the books to decide which books make it onto the list.
Their main event is TomeCon, which is an end of the year conference in North Georgia where all the chapters come together for a fun day of author panels, writing workshops, and reading bowl competitions.
Tome Society plans TomeCon year-round and there is a lot of work to get done.
“Some of our tasks including booking the facility and a lunch caterer, booking authors and speakers, planning the schedule, creating posters and bookmarks, designing the t-shirt, recruiting volunteers to work at the event, getting the word out to schools, setting up and managing registration, and so much more,” said Hamby.
TomeCon is a fun way for all the chapters to get to know one another and to enjoy the fruits of their labor.
Mrs. Straub wanted to join Tome Society because she “always wanted to do it because of the opportunities for the students.”
Mrs. Messick and Mrs. Straub wanted Tome Society to attract students with different types of interests. Tome Society has theme activities that relate to the books, such as making a book cover, a song, or hosting a podcast based on the books they read.
“There [are] lots of opportunities for different children who like art, or maybe they want to make music, or maybe they like a competition,” said Mrs. Messick.
Not only does Tome Society create opportunities for the members; it is also a good place to get to know other students who love to read.
“I like the club because it has a really good sense of community because we get to talk about books with other book lovers,” said freshman Violet McClain.
While this year they will not compete in the Reading Bowl Competition, they are planning to attend the TomeCon in March.
“You have to start somewhere with something new,” said Mrs. Messick.
If you are interested in joining, email Mrs. Straub or Mrs. Messick.
