Hi. This is Christie Vilsack. I would like to thank all of you - teachers, school and community librarians, and most especially you Middle School Students for making our "In the Middle" online summer reading club such a smashing success.

Nearly 250 students from all over Iowa, from Sioux City to Davenport, Greenfield to Mason City, joined the club at my website, reading a wide selection of youth-oriented books and then posting an amazing number of insightful, thoughtful and sometimes humorous comments. I was delighted to respond to those I could, and wish I could have participated more.

I think many of us found that no matter how far we may live from each other here in this wonderful state, whether we live in big cities, small towns or on farms, we share a passion for good books and a love for discussing them. By "talking" with each other through the book club, I think we also may have discovered that as Iowans we have more in common, more similar problems and joys, more shared experiences (and not just our fickle weather) than we might have thought. When it comes to reading and discussing ideas and memories of experiences rekindled by the books, Iowans are indeed a community of book lovers. And we seem to enjoy sharing our thoughts about them over our computers, which I like to think of as the "campfires" of the 21st Century, where we tell our stories and share the experiences that make up our lives.

Because of the summer book club's success, I have decided to extend the club into this school year. And we are going to make it as easy and fun to join as possible.

If you joined during the summer, you do not need to sign up again. Just continue reading the selected books and posting your comments as you have been doing. I will join in the discussions.

If you are new to the club, it's a no-brainer to sign up. Just click on the "Join the Club" link on the left side of my Home page, follow the prompts, answer a few easy questions, and you're ready to go. And not to worry: we will not share your email addresses or other information with anyone else.

As during the summer, the books I will choose for our school year reading will all be fiction. It's hard to choose a non-fiction book with widespread appeal. We all have subjects we are particularly interested in knowing more about, but that subject may not interest others.

I will also post discussion questions for each book, and I will suggest topics related to the book that you might want to find out more about.

I will choose one book for each month, unlike the summer when we had four to choose from each month. For September, I have chosen the sixth Harry Potter book, "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince." That should get the school year off to a stimulating and adventurous start as we try to fire up our summer-fried brains.

We will also keep the summer books posted so you can check those out, too.

You are welcome to respond to my questions, but you also might want to raise some other questions yourself or make some comments that are not connected with my questions. The questions are just to get us started.

Also be sure that if you have some other suggestions for good books to read that you include those on our website as well.

For instance, science fiction is not a genre I know much about. If you're a science fiction fan, give us some suggestions.

I also invite classroom teachers, teacher librarians and community librarians to use my In the Middle Book Club in anyway you feel is appropriate to encourage your students and young library patrons to read.

Hi, I'm Carol Reinhard and I'm the one working with Christie Vilsack to choose the books we post on the book club. I love the fact that all of you who respond are so honest with your opinions and thoughts. Thanks for all the excellent feedback. If you haven't registered yet, be sure to do so and start participating in the best on-line book club for young teens.

It took me a while to decided what I wanted to be when I grew up. I trained as a history teacher, worked as a lab technician (we did neat undersea simulations), substitute teacher, graduate student in reading, stay at home mm and finally a reading teacher at big high school. Still, I hadn't quite decided what I wanted to be, then I discovered what I really wanted to be is a librarian. I am now a teacher librarian and tech co-coordinator at an alternative high school and I love my job.

One last important story about me: I am old enough to have had polio in the last epidemic before the vaccinations. I spent six weeks flat (no pillows at all) on my back in bed, no TV, just a radio. I was seven, in second grade and knew how to read. For those weeks, I only left my bed in my imagination traveling the woods with Big Red, helping Nancy Drew solve mysteries. My life long love affair with books began in a built-in knotty pine bunk bed in Rockford, Illinois. I plan to read forever and think some of the best books being published today are for teens.