One Year Later

It has been almost a year since I started my book club and I am so so happy with how it turned out. We read fewer books than initially I had planned for, but I do think that that was a wise decision. It was difficult to maintain members because of how busy everyone is, plus the general interests of the people at my school not necessarily being book related. So, three books was a good amount. We read Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin, Maus by Art Spiegelman, and Native Son by Richard Wright. Each book was very different from the next and I feel like it was a representative selection. It's also interesting considering the animosity and criticism Baldwin had for Wright. If I had more time I would have shifted the focus to Asian voices, possibly reading one of my favorite books, The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy. There are so many more books I wish we could've gotten to!

Overall, I think that my book club was successful. The members were all impacted by the literature we read, which is the most important measure of success. I achieved my goal of spreading representative literature to the students of my school, and I know that they will go on and share their reads with others. One thing I think it's important to note is that when starting your book club assess your audience. Native Son was probably the most difficult for us to get through, simply because of the length. Every member had a variety of other activities going on, plus school work. So have a mix of books that are different in length and format. For example, Maus is a graphic novel and we definitely had the most success in members finishing that one. One other thing I will note, is that it's important to make the members feel welcome even if they hadn't finished the book, and when I assured everyone that they should come regardless of if they finished, more people showed up. Each meeting revolved around the book, but also had societal questions, videos, and activities that anyone could partake in. It's important that the book club is an interactive experience.

As far as how my club was set up, I'll go into a little detail so that anyone reading this can use this information if they decide to start their own club. To get people interested in the club, I created posters that I set out in the school, my English teacher who was the book club advisor and one of my counselors spread information, and I advertised the club on the school news every day. So, I spread word about the first meeting and from there I had people sign up for the club's Remind, which is an app that I used to send out notifications. The first meeting we discussed book banning in general, I shared some pretty horrifying statistics about the topic, and the members took a survey that I made to gauge reactions and plan for the future. After that, I simply sent notifications about one to two weeks before and people showed up the day of. I used library books for the most part, and donated books so that people wouldn't have to go out and get the books. I think this helped make the club more accessible for everyone. And then the year went on and our club was set! I continued advertising the club on the school news periodically, though I have to admit, it didn't really make a difference in recruiting people. Mostly it depends on your own spreading of information I think and your enthusiasm.

I hope that this gives you some motivation for your own book clubs and answers any questions you may have! It was so fulfilling to do this and I really feel like people felt seen because of it. Representation is incredibly important for all members of society, and this was a little bite back at the members of the school board trying to ban books. So go off now and do your own part in the fight against book banning.