This July, we are starting a Read Woke Book Club for Teens entering Grades 8 and up. Our meeting to discuss our first book will be held on Tuesday, July 28th at 7:00pm via Zoom. Click here for more info and to register to attend.
What is "Read Woke"?
Read Woke was created by librarian Cicely Lewis. For a book to be "woke," it must:
- challenge a social norm
- give voice to the voiceless
- provide information about a group that has been disenfranchised
- seek to challenge the status quo
- have a protagonist from an underrepresented or oppressed group
Read more about reading woke in this article Cicely Lewis wrote for School Library Journal.
What are we doing at EBPL?
In East Brunswick, we want our teens to read woke! So we are launching a book club to read and discuss the same book once a month. We will read our first book in July and meet via Zoom to chat about it. You get to vote on what book we'll read first! For now, the choices are limited to what is available on Hoopla Digital so everyone with an EBPL card has access.
The choices for our first Read Woke Book Club pick are:
- With the Fire on High by Elizabeth Acevedo [ebook] [audio]
- The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander [ebook]
- Monday’s Not Coming by Tiffany D. Jackson [ebook] [audio]
- American Street by Ibi Zoboi [ebook] [audio]
- March: Book One by John Lewis and Andrew Aydin [ebook]
Update: The Votes are In!
Our first Read Woke Book Selection is With the Fire on High by Elizabeth Acevedo!