Book Club Chat

By Terrie Bickel, Leader of the Bremen Readers Book Club

The Bremen Readers met November 15 to discuss The Blue Bottle Club by Penelope J. Stokes. This inspirational book tells the story of four friends and how grace came to play in each of their lives.

The book begins with a reporter, Brenden Delaney, who is doing a small story about an historic home that is being torn down. After she is given a blue bottle that was found in the attic before demolition, she discovers four papers inside the bottle. Upon further investigation, she finds that the papers are actually dreams, written down by four teenage friends on a Christmas day in 1929. The dreams describe what each girl hopes the future holds for her. When Brenden reads these papers, she sets out on a mission to see if the girls are still alive these 65 years later, and if so, how have their lives turned out. The book follows the reporter on this quest to find four old friends, as well as herself.

The Readers rated this book a 3.88 out of 5. They liked how each friend’s story was revealed, as well as the grace each girl discovered along the way.  It is an uplifting and enjoyable story that teaches us “The dream itself is the gift, not necessarily the fulfillment.”