PTA Book Club introduction

Automatically generated from the audio, so it may not be perfectly word-for-word.

Hi, welcome to the PTA Podcast. My name is Yvonne, and I've been a PTA volunteer for a few years now. But I'm just one of thousands of volunteers up and down the country who all want to make a difference to their schools. PTAs are becoming even more crucial in UK schools to boost budgets, and I find it fascinating to talk to other volunteers about the different approaches they take. So please join me in this podcast to share information, generate ideas, debate issues and celebrate success. And I hope that you can take something away for your PTA today. A few years ago I came across a book which had a plot line involving PTAs, and it was the first time I had come across that in a book. But I have managed to gather some books to get us started, and I would like to invite you to join the PTA Podcast Book Club. I'm going to record an episode per book, and I would love to incorporate your thoughts and opinions on the books too. So if you would like to take part, then just sign up to my mailing list on my website, which is www.ptapodcast.com, and I will email out when we're going to start the book, and I'll probably give you about eight weeks' notice, I think, which will hopefully give you a chance to get your hands on a copy of the book, read it, and then send me your thoughts by the date, which I give you in the email. Then when I talk about that particular story, I thought it'd be really wonderful to include any thoughts or comments or reviews that you have about the story that you've sent over to me. I can of course keep your name anonymous if you like, you just have to let me know when you send me your email, and that would be absolutely fine. So just make sure you have signed up to my mailing list to take part so I can let you have all the details. I've actually listed all the books we're going to look at over the next few months so you can see what's coming up and order them from your local library or buy yourself a copy. I have listed them, I haven't listed them, sorry, in the order that we will be reading them. Um it's completely random order as I've only read one of the books before. But I thought um knowing you knowing in advance what's coming up might be just helpful to you to get a copy of the book. So now I'm just going to introduce the books to you as I'm hoping to whet your appetite and encourage you to take part. So the first one on the list is called The Hive by Jill Hornby, and this was published in 2013, so I'll just read you the blurb on the back. Welcome to St Ambrose Primary School, a world of friendships, fights and feuding, and that's just the mothers. It's the start of another school year at St Ambrose. But while the children are in the classroom colouring in, their mothers are learning sharper lessons on the other side of the school gates. Lessons in friendship, lessons in betrayal, lessons in the laws of community, the transience of power, and how to get invited to lunch. Beatrice, undisputed Queen Bee, ruler by divine right of all school fundraising this year, last year, and surely for many years to come. Heather, desperate to volunteer, desperate to be noticed, desperate just to belong. Georgie, desperate for a fag, and Rachel, watching them all, keeping her distance, but soon to discover that the line between amused observer and miserable outcast is a thin one. Wickedly funny and brilliantly observed, the hive is a fascinating and subtle story about group politics and female friendship. From the joys and perils, well, mainly perils of the lunch ladder to the military operation that is the car boot sale, via the do's and don'ts of dressing your child as a Dalek, all human life is here. So um this is the book that um gave me the idea of starting the PJ Podcast Book Club. Uh this is the book that I read a few years ago, and the story and the plot has just really stuck in my mind. So I'm really looking forward to giving it another read because I can't really remember all the ins and outs of the um characters and the storylines. So um so that's the one we're going to be looking at first. Then we have a book called The Schoolgate Survival Guide by Kerry Fisher, and this was published in 2014, and I'll just read you the summary. Maya is a cleaner for ladies who lunch. With mops and buckets in tow, she spends her days dashing from house to house, cleaning up after them as they rush from one exhausting Pilates class to the next. But an unusual inheritance catapults her and her children into the very exclusive world of Stirling Hall School, a place where no child can survive without organic apricots and no woman goes a week without a manicure. As Maya and her children, Bronte and Harley, try to settle into their new life, Maya is inadvertently drawn to the one man who can help her family fit in. But is his interest in her purely professional and will it win her any favours at the schoolgate? A hilarious straight-talking tale for anyone who's ever despaired at the politics of the school run. Okay, then we have something um a little bit different that I discovered. This one is called the Grimoire Grammar School Parent Teacher Association, and it's by Caitlin Razakis, and this was published actually in 2025. So this this one is a bit different, and I'm very excited to read this. When Vivian's kindergartner, Aria, gets bitten by a werewolf, she is rapidly inducted into the hidden community of magical schools. Reeling from their sudden move, Vivian finds herself having to pick the right sacrificial dagger for Aria, keep stocked up on chew toys, and play PTA politics with sirens and cathonic nymphs and people who literally can set her hair on fire. As Vivian careens from hellhounds in the school corridors to demons at the talent show, she races to keep up with all the arcane secrets of her new society. Shops only accessible by magic portal, the brutal trials to enter high school, and the eternal inferno that is the parents' WhatsApp group. And looming over everything is a prophecy of doom that sounds suspiciously like it's about Aria. Vivia might be facing the end of days just as soon as she can get her daughter dressed and out of the door. So this is basically a story set in a magical school, I guess kind of like Hogwarts, but it's about the parent teacher association in a fantasy school. So I'm really excited to uh have a look at that one. Then I have um a book called Class Mom by Laurie Gelman. Uh this is about an American school, so it's an American author. And I will just read you the blurb on this one. Oh, this one was published. Let me just check. Uh okay, 2017, this one. Okay, this one says Jen Dixon is not your typical Kansas City class mum, or mum in general. Jen already has two college-age daughters by two different, probably musicians, and it's her second time around the class mum block with five-year-old Max, this time with a husband and father by her side. Though her best friend and PTA president sees her as the wisest candidate for the job, or oldest, not all of the other parents agree. Relatable, cheeky, and laugh out loud funny in the spirit of Maria Semple, I'm not sure who that is. Class Mum is a fresh, welcome voice in fiction, the kind of novel that real mums clamour for, and a vicarious thrill read for all mothers who will be laughing as they are liberated by Gellman's acerbic truths. So I thought that one sounded really fun. And this final one, uh, which is on my list, has the best title out of all of them. This book is called Murder at the PTA and is by Laura Alden. It does say on the book first in a new series, which is quite exciting. Um, and this one was published in 2010. Again, this is an American author success in America. Um, so whether there's been any more I haven't actually looked yet, but I will just read you the back now. As the owner of a children's bookshop in the quaint town of Rinwood, with Wisconsin, and a mother of two, Beth Kennedy has a full plate. So when her best friend Marina asks her to become the secretary for Tarva Elementary School's PTA, Beth can think of better ways to occupy what little free time she has. But after some arm twisting, Marina's favourite activity, Beth agrees to come on board. The course of PTA meetings has never run smoothly, but when Tarva's unpopular principal turns up dead, Beth realizes that making baked sales wheat-free and funding class trips weren't the only things on the agenda. Then the local gossip blog Wisconsin Wiscons Wisconsin's starts fanning the flames of speculation, and it seems like everyone is a suspect, especially certain members of the PTA. Beth knows she must race to find the killer before he teaches another fatal lesson. So I wonder what on earth has happened for somebody to murder the head teacher and were they on the PTA or not. Intriguing, intriguing. So that's my list at the moment, and we're going to be starting with The Hive by Jill Hornby as our first book. So visit my website to get the details, uh, the author, etc. So and sign up to my PTA mailing list so I can let you know the timings of our first read, and then you can be ready. And I'm really looking forward to hearing what you think about these books, and I really hope you enjoy reading them. And that's all I wanted to say for this short episode. Just really introduce the books and encourage you to take part in the PTA Podcast Book Club. Do share this episode with your PTA friends as it would be great to have as many of you joining in as possible. So once you've signed up to my mailing list, look out for an email to let you know when we are starting to read, which book we're reading, and when I need your review by so that I can include it in my episode about the books. And that's all there is to it, really. I hope all is going well in your PTA world at the moment, and I will chat to you next time. Bye for now, you can't do that.