Family Book Club

Every summer for several years, our monthly “Back Porch” column has highlighted some aspect of summer reading. We’ve done beach reads, young adult reads, high school literature classes, reading with fathers, Audible books, co-workers who read together. And there’s more. But this year we are introducing the most creative idea yet: the family vacation book club. (Even though we are nearing the end of summer, there’s still time – always time – for a family read, whether that’s at home or while sneaking in one last getaway before school starts).

Leave it to Melanie and Chris Promecene to come up with something so original. Melanie, an interior designer by trade who is now an author and poet, and Chris, owner of Promecene Design and a master at graphics and branding, were set to cruise to the Caribbean this summer in celebration of Chris’ 60th birthday, along with their 10-year-old son Noah and Chris’ San Antonian brother Will and sister-in-law Angela.

During a pre-cruise conversation about a month before setting sail, the family decided to create a cruise book club. All Melanie could think was, “Oh no, it takes us so long to read, and we only have a month.” 

That’s because Melanie is not a born reader. “It wasn’t until I was an adult in design school that I learned my eyes track differently,” Melanie says. “I only read if I had to for school.”

Then along came Noah. “He’s severely dyslexic,” Melanie explains. “He learns differently, and he’s also super intelligent. We want to support that, so I read to him every night for at least an hour. That has become our special time together.” This summer, Noah has been working with teachers at The Joy School to learn how to research and produce papers using special speech-to-text and text-to-speech technology. 

Noah Promecene is not only learning to love books, he collaborated in writing and publishing three of them by the time he was 10 – Claire & the Astronaut, Hoot Hoot, and The Sea and Shell, all under the publishing name The Family Promecene. (Photo: Dylan Aguilar)

At home, he and his mom have whizzed through all the Harry Potter books, and they’re just about through all of the Percy Jackson books by Rick Riordan. “If I can find a series – any kind of series for young kids – we read the books and then watch the movie. He never watches the movie first. The books capture Noah’s attention so we can go from the next to the next to the next to the next,” Melanie says. 

All that reading aloud has resulted in an expansive vocabulary for a 10-year-old. And that, thanks to Melanie and Chris, has led to what Melanie calls “magical storytelling” and a sharp focus on creative thought and imagination. “We were wondering how we can help him start creating his own stories,” which is how the family came to publish three children’s books – The Sea and Shell, Hoot Hoot, and Claire & the Astronaut, all under the publishing name The Family Promecene. 

Melanie already had experience publishing: Grit & Magic is a sweet memoir detailing the process she and Chris went through to adopt Noah. She knew about printing, publishing, and distributing a book. And Chris was a natural illustrator. “As a graphic designer, I have always had an appreciation for children’s book illustrators,” he says. “When Noah was little, he had this astronaut suit he would wear. He loved astronauts. And that kind of reminded me of a story I’d had in my head forever about an astronaut visiting a school. From there, it just took off.”

“We pitched the idea [of writing children’s books] to Noah as an entrepreneurial lesson,” Melanie says. “What it is to create a business, the costs associated with that, the marketing, the time. He’s seeing all of it.”

“Everything builds on the last thing,” Chris says. “He’s an entrepreneur in the making. Although how enthusiastic about it he is ebbs and flows.

“Because he learns and retains information through hearing stories, we were trying to channel that natural strength to translate to reading,” Chris says. “It’s not about retaining the information read to him, but it’s getting him to appreciate that reading and writing are more advanced forms of storytelling.” 

Melanie chimes in: “We’re playing to his strengths. He likes to tell stories. Hopefully that translates as a bridge to reading.”

Angela and Will Promecene joined Noah, Chris, and Melanie (from left) on a cruise for Chris' 60th birthday, where they created a family book club.

Melanie and Chris also view the books as alternatives to screens. “Yes, there are digitals and games, but there are also these things called books,” Chris says.

“We would talk about the stories as a family,” Melanie says. “Noah would say, ‘I think it would be better if this was a squirrel,’ so we’d change it. We did lots of rhyming, and Noah helped with that. He was learning how to tell a story on his own.” 

The stories are now books, and the books are available through Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other online booksellers. “At nine years old, Noah had published three books,” Melanie says.

The Sea and Shell

Still, when it came time to join his family’s vacation book club this summer, Noah was hesitant. 

“He said, ‘I’ve never done this,’ but I had never done a book club either,” Melanie says. “So I said this is your first book club and my first book club.”

Hoot Hoot

Angela, Chris’ sister-in-law, chose The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern as the book club book. A fantasy set in the 1800s about an extraordinary nighttime-only circus – plus large doses of mystery, magic, and love – the book was published in 2012 to much acclaim (and bestseller status). It wasn’t something Chris, an avid reader, would have chosen – “He was like, we need a spy novel,” Melanie says – but he loved it. “It was kind of like a Harry Potter,” Melanie says. “The environment was so vivid. An illusory, sensory experience, which is how we fell in love with Harry Potter.” 

Even with all the enthusiasm from his family, Noah wasn’t convinced. “Not my favorite,” he says of The Night Circus. “I was glad we finally finished it so I could get back to Percy Jackson!”

The family pledged not to discuss the book until they were cruising, at which point they had all finished the novel. Everyone except for Chris resorted to the audio version toward the end, and they loved the British narrator: “He had so many different voices, and all the accents were wonderful,” Melanie says. She adds that not discussing the book until they were sailing created an excitement about the vacation. 

Claire & the Astronaut

Once onboard, the family would discuss the book at dinners and over drinks. Chris – always thinking in graphics – created a book-themed t-shirt and gave each club member a red handkerchief (in the book, people who loved the circus were distinguishable by the “something red” on their bodies). 

“For wanting to keep a low profile for his 60th,” Melanie laughs, “there was a celebration every single night on that boat.”

As for their own books, Melanie and Chris are now helping friends interested in writing, illustrating, and publishing stories. But Melanie points out about the books her family has created, “This is not a money-maker. It’s a creative collaboration.” A collaboration built on learning, imagination, and a lot of love.

Editor’s note: For more on book recommendations, see articles by Buzz book reviewer Cindy Burnett.