These Kids Started a Book Club for Minority Boys. It’s the Most Popular Club in School.
January 21, 2018
By: Perry Stein
Source: The Washington Post
Truesdell Education Campus has a problem.
The school can’t keep its shelves stocked with the most popular books. Students are not-so-subtly reading in class when they should be paying attention to their teachers. And some boys are crowding the library before the morning bell even sounds.
With the help of an administrator, 10 fifth-graders started a book club at this school in the Brightwood neighborhood of Northwest Washington — and it has fast become the most popular club on campus, with staff members struggling to keep up with their students’ voracious literary habits.
“The books that we read here, we can relate to,” 11-year-old Devon Wesley said. The book club has finally allowed Devon to encounter black characters who look like him.
The club dates back to December, when a fifth-grader complained one morning that his lackluster results on a citywide English exam didn’t reflect his true reading abilities…